It is no exaggeration to call Victor Grossman a witness to the last century. Born in New York City on March 11, 1928, the journalist spent most of his life first in East Germany (GDR) and then, after 1990, in the reunified Germany, yet he always remained an American. His life story, vividly recounted in his autobiography Crossing the River, is the exemplary journey of a communist between worlds who remained unwaveringly true to his convictions. The book is also testimony to the fact that the GDR — despite all its serious failings, both avoidable and perhaps unavoidable — sought a legitimate and alternative path to the course of German history up to that point.

Stephen Wechsler — as Victor was originally named — grew up in New York as the son of an art dealer and a librarian. His family had escaped the antisemitic pogroms of tsarist Russia before 1900. His childhood memories were linked to the sweeping misery of the Great Depression, which forced the family to move several times. The young Wechsler’s left-wing orientation was thus in a sense predetermined.

While still in high school, he joined the Young Communist League in 1942. This was not surprising in New York at the time: most of his classmates leaned toward either the Communist or Socialist party. There were also some Trotskyists. An early role model was Congressman Vito Marcantonio, who was elected to the House of Representatives several times for the American Labor Party (which only ran in New York state).