The Death Ship (49 page)

Otto Feige was one of several names Traven had offered to police while being questioned in London in 1923, prior to leaving for Mexico. Wyatt had searched files and records for these names and traced an Otto Feige to the town. He found the elderly brother and sister of Otto, who confirmed from their family history and photos that Marut/Traven was their brother, who had disappeared as a youth after scandalising the town with his involvement in radical politics. He was last heard of when a letter arrived some time after WWI informing them that he was about to be expelled from England; this was presumably in 1923, when ‘Ret Marut’ left London on the journey that ended upon his arrival in Mexico the next year. The evidence Traven had provided to the UK and US authorities — names, occupations etc. - tallied with the facts of the family background of Otto Feige. It was also confirmed that Otto Feige’s father had worked in a factory that made coal brickettes for use as fuel — a likely source for the name of Ret Marut’s anarchist paper, ‘Der Zeigelbrenner’ — i.e. ‘The Brickburner’ or ‘Brickmaker’. The Feige family also related that shortly after Otto had written from London telling of his troubles with the authorities, his mother had received a visit from the police enquiring if she had a son named Otto. They were presumably checking out Marut/Feige’s story on behalf of the London and US authorities. Scared that this was in relation to Otto’s radical politics and his being held in London, she denied his existence for fear of bringing trouble on the family. The family later found her sobbing with fear and shame. That was the last the family heard of Otto until Wyatt and his BBC film crew appeared 50 years later.

A later biographer, K.S. Guthke, has disputed the Otto Feige conclusion as the final word on the matter, as have some other Travenologists. They claim Wyatt has not definitely proved his case and that it is possible that Marut/Traven - though he must have been very familiar with the town of Schweibus, Feige and his family — could simply have adopted Feige’s identity.

To this writer, Wyatt’s case and the photographic evidence seem convincing. But whatever the truth, the books remain to be enjoyed and to inspire — a rare case of literary expression being of equal quality to its radical political content. To judge him only in literary terms is to miss his point; nevertheless, unlike much literature attempting to convey a political ‘message’, Traven is a pleasure to read. B. Traven was a great storyteller, and also — that true rarity — a great political novelist. But he knew his books were only effective if they inspired reflection and engagement with the world in the reader. As Traven said (while masquerading as ‘Hal Croves’) “Life is worth more than any book one can write”.

RM

Biographies:

The Man Who Was B. Traven
; Will Wyatt, Johnathan Cape, London, 1980.
B. Traven – The Life Behind The Legends
; Karl S. Guthke, Lawrence Hill Books, 1991.
The Man Nobody Knows: The Life and Legacy of B. Traven
; Roy Pateman, University Press of America, 2005.

Taken from :

http://libcom.org/library/b-traven-anti-biography

Appendix B - Further sources of information about B. Traven

The B Traven section of the libertarian communist website libcom.org, from which the above article is taken, has a large number of texts relating to B Traven as well as some texts written by him:

http://libcom.org/tags/b-traven

For a very detailed overview of B Traven’s work and an impressive list of  books, films and TV programmes relating to the man and his work, see the website of the International B. Traven Association:

www.btraven.com

If you want to find more of his novels pirated in electronic form… Well, you’ll just have to keep looking to see where they turn up, or produce some yourself!