John Herrmann
| John Herrmann | |
|---|---|
| Born |
John Theodore Herrmann November 9, 1900 Lansing, Michigan |
| Died | April 9, 1959 (aged 58) Mexico |
| Cause of death | Heart attack |
| Resting place | Mt. Hope Cemetery, Lansing, MI |
| Education | George Washington University University of Michigan University of Munich Mexico City College |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Spouse(s) | Josephine Herbst, Ruth Tate |
| Children | John Theodore Ryder Herrmann |
John Theodore Herrmann was a writer in the 1920s and 1930s and is alleged to have introduced Whittaker Chambers to Alger Hiss.
Herrmann was born in Lansing, Michigan in 1900. He lived in Paris in the 1920s, as part of its famous expatriate American writers' circle, when he met his first wife, Josephine Herbst in 1924. Herbst enjoyed more success as a writer than Herrmann; the couple lived a few years in rural Pennsylvania, and were friends with Katherine Anne Porter, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, William Carlos Williams, and others.
Herrmann's first novel, What Happens, was original published in Paris by Robert McAlmon's Contact Editions press. Copies were seized by U.S. Customs upon their arrival in the United States on the charge of violating the 1922 Tariff Act, which banned the import of obscene materials from foreign countries. Herrmann fought the charge in a jury trial in New York City in October 1927 but ultimately lost. Despite supporters such as Genevieve Taggard, H.L. Mencken, and Katharine Anne Porter, the jury responded with a negative verdict, and the judge ordered the seized copies destroyed.
In 1932, Herrmann's short novel, "The Big Short Trip," tied with Thomas Wolfe for the Scribner's Magazine short novel prize.
In 1934, he went to work with Harold Ware and his organization Farm Research, Inc., which worked with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration. Herrmann soon was a part of the Ware group, a secret apparatus of the CPUSA and Comintern in Washington, D.C., which supplied classified information to Soviet intelligence. From early 1934 until the summer of 1935, Herrmann was a paid courier for the CPUSA, delivering material emanating from the secret cells of sympathetic government employees being cultivated by Hal Ware to New York City. Herrmann also was the person who introduced Whittaker Chambers to Alger Hiss.
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