Bruno Frei

(pen name of Benedikt Freistadt). Born June 11, 1897, in Bratislava. Austrian journalist and writer. Member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (1928); member of the Communist Party of Germany from 1934. Doctor of philosophy (1922).

Between 1934 and 1947, Frei was an émigré in Czechoslovakia, France, and Mexico. He began writing journalism in 1917. His works include the collection of stories Sailors From Kotor: An Episode in the History of Revolutionary 1918 (1927; revised edition, 1963; Russian translation, 1966) and the documentary work Men From Vernet (1950), which deals with the antifascists of the Vernet concentration camp in France, where Frei was incarcerated by German occupation forces in 1939. Other notable works include the collection of journalistic writings With My Own Eyes (1955), a biography of C. von Ossietzky (1966), and sharply critical studies of anarchism (1971). Frei received the H. Heine Prize of the German Democratic Republic in 1966.