VICTOR GROSSMAN died on Wednesday December 17, aged 97.

The US-born communist was famed for his dramatic desertion from the US army while stationed in Germany post-war, when in 1952 he crossed into Austria, then divided into occupation zones, and swam across the Danube to defect to the Soviet bloc.

Born Stephen Wechsler in 1928 in New York to Jewish parents, he changed his name to Victor Grossman after settling in East Germany, hiding his identity to shield his family from repercussions at the height of the cold war. 

He later wrote memoirs about his life in the United States and Germany, including Crossing the River and A Socialist Defector: from Harvard to Karl Marx Allee.

Into his final year he produced a monthly Berlin Bulletin, emailed to contacts around the world detailing political developments in Germany. 

He was a regular attendee at the Rosa Luxemburg Conference and periodically contributed to the Morning Star. Former German MP Sevim Dagdelen paid tribute to “a tireless fighter for peace and justice, and one of the last great voices of a generation that stood for a better world.”