The Maxwell and Epstein Octopus: The Prequel Part 2
The Cambridge Spy Ring, Victor Rothschild, LUDWIG, MAXIMOV, Robert Maxwell and the Boomer Truth Regime
Early Life
Ian Robert Maxwell, previously alleged called Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch, was allegedly born on the 10th of June 1923 in Czechoslovakia, in the town of Solotvyno, which now lies within the borders of Ukraine.
What’s most suspect about Robert Maxwell’s history during the war are his age and upbringing with respect to his deeds. We are expected to believe that a poor Yiddish boy from Eastern Europe, having left home at 16 with no family, had worked his way up the ladder on the front lines from Private to Captain, worked his way up such that by age 22 in 1945, he was working between both MI6 and the KGB running the grey market in post-war Berlin in cigarettes, nylons, alcohol and press licenses.
The problem with this version of events with respect to Robert Maxwell’s early life on Wikipedia is that there isn’t currently any evidence of it or for it. Wikipedia lists a Russian language book entitled ‘Евреи в войнах тысячелетий’ or ‘Jews in the Wars of the Millennium’ by Mark Steinberg, published in 2004, as a primary source, alongside another Russian language Ukrainian editorial retrospective from 2002, about Maxwell’s visit to Solotvyno in 1978. These accounts are neither contemporary with the claims themselves, nor do they appear to reference contemporary first hand sources. The third source refers to ‘Ludvik Hoch’ at the Central Military Archive in Prague, but the record doesn’t exist, neither does any soldier by the name of ‘Ludvik Hoch’.
The second problem is that in Czechoslovakia prior to World War 2, Russian was not a primary language, the primary languages were Czechoslovak, German, Hungarian, Polish and Rusyn, which is closer to the Ukrainian than the Russian language. Just because the accounts referenced are written in Russian does not make them any more plausible than if they were written in Italian or Greek, especially considering Maxwell’s known links to the KGB and GDR officials.
What there is evidence of, however, in the United Kingdom, is a German by the name of Jan Hoch, born on the 20th of Jun 1911 in Erding, Germany, who applied to MI5 to be an Special Operations Executive agent after having escaped Nazi concentration camp, and who was trained at SOE STS 3, STS5, and STS 51 to become a ‘Bonzo’. Bonzos, according to lore, were agents trained to recapture the fine art that Hitler had sequestered from Europe. Jan Hoch’s age and background also make a lot more sense with respect to Robert Maxwell’s rise to influence and power.
After World War 2 there is, then, evidence of a man called Ludvik Hoch, who became a naturalised British Citizen in the summer of 1946, who changed his name by deed poll to Ian Robert Maxwell in the summer of 1948. Ludvik Hoch’s naturalisation certificate and UK Home Office records are retained by Kew National Archives, and although Johann Hoch and Ludvik Hoch’s records ostensibly overlap chronologically in the year 1946, there is nothing in Johann Hoch’s records dated later than 1945.
Furthermore, nowhere with respect to any of these records does there appear to be a ‘Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch’ at all, only separate aliases and/or people. Considering subsequent events and public information with respect to Robert Maxwell and his daughter’s activities it is in the public interest to understand more about how his career came about. The subject has been referenced and mentioned at length in previous articles, and include:
Gordon Thomas’ sworn testimony with respect to Robert Maxwell’s sales of compromised PROMIS software and other espionage activities on behalf of Israel (on the blockchain here), his alleged assassination at the hands of MOSSAD and his book on the subject.
Questions around who Robert Maxwell really worked for as a spy.
The continuation of Robert Maxwell’s work through Ghislaine Maxwell.
Kew National Archives have made Johann Hoch’s records, at my own request, available for download in the public domain until the 11th of November 2023, with respect to order number RC6608880. The file has also been uploaded to archive.org.
Robert Maxwell’s Libel Writs
It is eminently understandable why investigative journalists never pressed or deeply investigated Robert Maxwell’s background during his lifetime. The mythos surrounding his World War 2 escapades were shrouded in official secrecy and in the paranoia and partisanship of 20th century politics and the Cold War. He also used his enormous wealth, status and power to aggressively and merciless silence critics or any perceived threat to his public image.
But with Robert Maxwell’s daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell, now imprisoned for 20 years, convicted of child sex trafficking; as part of what is widely regarded to have been, according to best available research, the Maxwell family business all along; Robert Maxwell long dead and new publicly available, previously secret documents telling a very different story with respect to the post-1945 Boomer Truth Regime; it’s time to start asking new questions.
Johann HOCH - born 20.06.1911
Johann Hoch appears on the doorstep of the British Armed forces in October 1944, via the Americans, after having surrendered to the French Forces of the Interior in September 1944.
The most interesting aspect of his background is still mostly redacted by the British government, but is as follows:
Remarks
His father did not take any part in politics but…
[redacted for 100 years until 2045 under FOI exemption 40(2)]
His second brother is, as far as Hoch knows, now serving with the Wehrmacht [Unified Forces of Nazi Germany].
He, himself, became an active member of the KPD [German Communist Party] in February 1930 and carried out similar propaganda work to that of his brother.
Johann Hoch’s picture from 1944, wearing and enlisted man’s German Army uniform, which he presumably used to escape and evade from German capture is below.
The man above looks exactly as Robert Maxwell, age 31, having escaped capture, would be expected to have looked: slimmer, more rugged and, perhaps, sheepish looking, but nevertheless the same.
Same eye size, colour (brown) brow and socket shape, and eye spacing
Same hair colour (brown), same receding hairline and higher than average forehead
Same ears
Same eyebrows
Same nose, narrow at the top, wide at the bottom, slight hook, same philtrum, same spacing between nose and mouth
Same cheekbones
Same mild receding jaw made up for with a strong jawline and strong chin
Give him more than a few decent meals, a wig, a nice suit and a few touch ups for the TV cameras, hey presto, the magic of public perception.
Again in 3/4 profile, the man above (Robert Maxwell) is hunched over, chin sticking out more, having his picture taken from above, has full cheeks, the man below, Johann Hoch, is sat up straight, has sunken, sallow cheeks. All the raw material, again, however, is basically identical.
With respect to familial likeness at a similar age, Ghislaine Maxwell, with her slimmer build and figure, looks like the spitting image of Johann Hoch, who bears the same name that her father bore and was an SOE and MI5 agent like her father was. The only difference between Johann Hoch and Robert Maxwell is their age and that one was a recorded history in World War 2 and the other does not, the rest is identical.
Therefore it is reasonable to assume, until evidence is presented to the contrary, that Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch never actually existed prior to 1944, and that, in fact, Robert Maxwell used a variety of aliases during World War 2, as a KPD member fighting, being captured by, escaping and evading the Wehrmacht. Prior to the summer of 1944, he had always been Johann Hoch, and when becoming a naturalized British Citizen after World War 2, some time in the period 1945-46, changed his name to Ludvik, to separate from his past, before finally changing his name to Robert Maxwell officially in the summer of 1948.
The experienced KPD propagandist Johann Hoch had good reason to want to put his past behind him after the war, because he wasn’t just any old KPD propagandist.
The above SOE training application form for Johann Hoch shows that between 1930 and 1940 he led a very colorful and courageous existence, but in retrospect, with 20/20 hindsight there is one crucial entry that stands out most.
1931-1933 Member of the ‘Pioner Sturmbteiling’ of Communist Party.
The English Translation of ‘Pioner Sturmbteillung’ is ‘Pioneer Storm Troopers’, but to understand the term in context it’s important to know that the term ‘Sturmbteillung’ was typically associated with organised Nazi paramilitaries in World War 2. The Communist paramilitary equivalent of the time is now commonly known as ‘Roter Frontkämpferbund’ which broadly translates to English as ‘The Red Front Fighters' League’. This KPD paramilitary group formed the blueprint and the basis of the later government and state security apparatus (Stasi) of the German Democratic Republic.
'After World War II, former RFB members such as Erich Honecker[30] and Erich Mielke[31] were actively involved in the creation of the first police and military units of the German Democratic Republic (GDR; East Germany) The Arbeiterkampfgruppen (English: Combat Groups of the Working Class) and the Nationale Volksarmee (English: National People's Army) claimed to carry on the traditions of the RFB, while the Federal Republic of Germany in West Germany enforced the ban of 1929 and prosecuted former Red Front fighters who admitted to their RFB activities.’
Erich Honecker was the General Secretary of the East German Communist Party from May 1971 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Robert Maxwell personally editted and published his autobiography, From My Life, via Pergammon Press in 1981.
Erich Mielke was the Minister of State Security (Chief Executive of the Stasi) from December 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
It is also important to understand that the RFB was formed and existed within a broader Soviet and communist apparatus in the 1920s and 1930s, especially with respect to James Jesus Angleton’s view that communist interests aren’t separated by national borders, in the same way that surveillance capital’s interests today aren’t either. Robert Maxwell sold back doored PROMIS software, that software then morphed into PRISM and surveillance capitalism as we know it today. It’s all been run as an intelligence and occupation framework from the beginning.
The Anti-Military Apparatus , also known as the Military Apparatus (M-Apparat), Department of Military Policy (AM-Apparat), Military-Political Apparatus or Der Apparat , was the intelligence service of the German Communist Party (KPD) that existed from 1920 to 1937.
The intelligence service was initially controlled and funded by the Communist International (Comintern) and later by the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
The anti-military apparatus was to prepare a communist overthrow in Germany in the early 1920s. From 1925 it turned into a secret network that monitored the officials and members of the KPD.
After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, the apparatus became a spy organization under Soviet influence, reporting directly to the CPSU and the Red Army of the Soviet Union and acting independently of the leadership of the KPD. The intelligence service did not succeed in establishing effective resistance against the National Socialists in Germany….
The KPD apparatus is considered by many historians to be the ideological forerunner of the GDR's Ministry for State Security (MfS), which made great efforts to police the population of the GDR and employed over 90,000 full-time and more than 100,000 unofficial staff in the late GDR. Kurt Koszyk describes him as a "forerunner of the security doctrine of the SED and the MfS". [11]
The historian Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk writes about the MfS: “It was a secret police, whose hallmark was the work inside the national territory and could not be controlled except by their clients. Work and structures were fed by the experiences of the Soviet secret police and by the secret structures set up in the KPD apparatus in the 1920s.” [12]
The MfS itself expressly regarded the apparatus of the KPD as its forerunner. In the early 1980s, Erich Mielke, who had been Minister for State Security for many years, initiated a research project that was intended to underpin this scientifically. [6]
Many former members of the apparatus became employees of the MfS and the secret services of the GDR. [13]
— Wikipedia (translated from German)
Johann, or perhaps just Ján for short, Hoch was a contemporary of these shining lights or ‘Leaders of the World’, as he later called them in his Pergamon Press biographical series, in the Roter Frontkämpferbund. It’s perhaps from them that he learned how to partner with the KGB effectively, in addition to the dark arts of silencing criticism and dissent.
The KGB used 'low-visibility harassment'[13] in order to control the population, and repress politically incorrect people and dissidents. This could involve causing unemployment, social isolation, and inducing mental and emotional health problems. Such methods formed the basis of the Stasi's use of Zersetzung (trans. decomposition) which has been considered to be a perfected version.[14] In 1978, Mielke formally granted KGB officers in East Germany the same rights and powers that they enjoyed in the Soviet Union.[15] The British Broadcasting Corporation noted that KGB officer (and future Russian President) Vladimir Putin worked in Dresden, from 1985-89, as a liaison officer to the Stasi from the KGB.[16] Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov responded to the reports by stating that 'The KGB and the Stasi were partner intelligence agencies'.[17]
Johann Hoch’s physical measurements and description should be adequate to ascertain a positive ID with respect to Ján. It’s unlikely that he’s anyone else.
Bonzo Training, Mission, Return
It’s unfortunate that Johann Hoch’s RFB membership status wasn’t made available to MI5 on his employment application, but perhaps that’s the redacted bit. Only FOI requests will aid us in working that one out.
On the 7th of December 1944, Johann Hoch officially applied to become a Special Operations Executive agent, and a Bonzo.
Very soon afterwards, on the 21st of December, Johann Hoch passes his medical examination and is passed fit for training.
For the next six weeks to two months, Johann Hoch underwent extensive training and examination, starting at STS 3 Christmas week, 1944.
Johann Hoch undertakes parachute training at STS 51.
Hoch passes training with solid reports with respect to his capabilities and ruggedness.
Between the 10th of February and the 17th of May, 1945, Johann Hoch carries out his mission. As a Bonzo having undergone parachute and special operations training, one can presume that he was parachuted near Berlin as a fluent German speaker, with existing contacts on the ground, a strong background in espionage, stealth, sabotage and evasion on behalf of the KPD already, given his previous background in the RFB. The file contains no information with respect to the mission he was recruited and trained to carry out. It seems unlikely that these operatives would have limited themselves to an interest in fine art, especially given Hoch’s expertise in propaganda and intelligence work more broadly. It’s also likely that this sort of action carried out successfully might very well earn a man a Military Cross with a made up story behind it.
Hoch returns to the UK on the 17th of May, 1945, 9 days following VE Day and is given the ostensible status of sergeant .
In July 1945, Hoch requests to travel back home to Munich, which is under American occupation. This request is relayed to the OSS, where Comintern agent Dr Rudolph Katz was also working at the time, as explained previously.
The request is made, however, with respect to Hoch returning to work for the British intelligence services in some post-war capacity at some unknown future date.
Concluding Thoughts
Given Robert Maxwell’s founding of Pergammon publishing with Paul Rosbaud, it’s more likely that Johann Hoch’s Bonzo missions were more related to actions such as Operation Epsilon and the Alsos Mission, although capturing anything of material value on such a mission would have been likely secondary and tertiary objectives also, but more likely decided in situ according to circumstance.
In a war the objective is to win a war, however the true cost of victory is never known at the time, and those with the best understanding of the true cost, those who finance wars, are also intelligence agents themselves. The Battle of Waterloo and the Rothschild family taught us this. Prior to World War 2 during the Spanish civil war this message was also being propagated, and likely also ruthlessly suppressed.
'Objectively they [the objectives of international finance and international communism] are identical. As I had proved, the Comintern, paralleled, doubled by the reformist movement and the whole of syndicalism, calls forth the anarchy of production, inflation, poverty and hopelessness in the masses. Finances, chiefly the financial international, doubled, consciously or unconsciously by private finances, create the same contradictions, but in still greater numbers... Now we can already guess the reasons why Marx concealed the financial contradictions, which could not have remained hidden from his penetrating gaze, if finances had not had an ally, the influence of which objectively revolutionary - was already then extraordinarily important.'
'The understanding of how the financial International has gradually, right up to our epoch, become the master of money, this magical talisman, which has become for people that which God and the nation had been formerly, is something which exceeds in scientific interest even the art of revolutionary strategy, since this is also an art and also a revolution. I shall explain it to you. Historiographers and the masses, blinded by the shouts and the pomp of the French revolution, the people, intoxicated by the fact that it had succeeded in taking all power from the King and the privileged classes, did not notice how a small group of mysterious, careful and insignificant people had taken possession of the real Royal power, the magical power, almost divine, which it obtained almost without knowing it. The masses did not notice that the power had been seized by others and that soon they had subjected them to a slavery more cruel than the King, since the latter, in view of his religious and moral prejudices, was incapable of taking advantage of such a power. So it came about that the supreme Royal power was taken over by persons, whose moral, intellectual and cosmopolitan qualities did allow them to use it. It is clear that this were people who had never been Christians, but cosmopolitans.'
War, conflict, since World War 1 they have become ever more inhuman, ever more psychological, informational, ever more related to money, power, industry, undermining populations in ever more subtle and pernicious ways. Slow burning underlying aggression and fear tear the fabric of society apart, tearing us away from what we know into an Alice in Wonderland world where up is down, where lies are truth, because only ‘the game’ is true and the truth is a lie because it can’t be gamed.
The real truth of war is that if that every lie incurs a debt to the truth, and that the truth very often hurts a lot more than the lie ever could, in the end.
Addendum
Following from Part 1, Rudolph Katz and Victor Rothschild were contemporary in New York in 1945.
September 11 2023 Update
Update from the Czech National Military Archives, apparently they lost Robert Maxwell’s data during a database update.
Anyone could have punched this in recently, and there is no supporting documentation for this entry either.
Further updates will be included in a future post.