In the first Moscow trial. Goltzman confessed. In November 1932, when he was in Berlin on business, he secretly met there with Trotsky’s son, Lev Sheidov, and gave him some documents and a code for future contacts to transmit to Trotsky, as a leader of the conspiracy (I. N. Smirnov) had asked him to do. During the second meeting, Sheidov suggested that Goltzman go with him to meet Trotsky, who lived in Copenhagen.
“I agreed then,” Goltzman confessed in court, “but I reminded him that we could not both go together in order not to attract attention. Sheldorf and I agreed that I would go to Copenhagen in two or three days, stay at the ‘Bristoli’ hotel, and meet him there. I left the station and went straight to the hotel, where I met Serdov at the check-in desk. At about ten o’clock we left to see Trotsky.”
Goltzman also admitted that Trotsky told him that “…… Stalin had to be eliminated …… the right people had to be carefully selected to carry out this task.”
When Goltzman’s confession was reported in the press, Trotsky immediately declared that it was all a lie, and immediately asked the Soviet court and the state prosecutor, Vyshinsky, through the foreign press agencies. Let them ask Goltzmann under what capacity and name he had entered Denmark.
Vyshinsky, of course, would not ask these questions of Goltzman. He knew that the Danish authorities checked all foreigners entering the country by registering their names and identities, so Wicinski was afraid that Western journalists would go around Denmark making inquiries. That way, the whole lie would be exposed. At the same time, Goltzman’s confession was very important for the trial. It was the basis for the prosecution of the other defendants. The indictment said (and later the verdict confirmed it) that these defendants were the perpetrators of terrorist activities and that Trotsky’s orders from Copenhagen had been transmitted to them through Goltzmann.
The court sentenced all of the defendants to death. Goltzmann was no exception. On August 25, 1936, the day after the verdict was handed down, the defendants were executed by firing squad. In this way, things became, as the saying goes. “death without proof”. Stalin and Vyshinsky thought that their trial farce would thus become an eternal mystery, but their calculations were wrong.
September 1 (less than a week after the shooting of the “conspirators”!) The official newspaper of the Danish government, Social Democracy, published an astonishing report that the “Bristol Hotel” had been closed in 1917 because of the demolition of the building; yet Goltzmann said that he had met Sheldorff there in 1932, and from there they went together to Trotsky’s house.
All the major news agencies of the world immediately reprinted this important news. People from all quarters, enemies and confused friends alike, asked Moscow: What is going on? But Stalin remained silent about it.
In the United States, a famous philosopher, John June, organized a special group to investigate the charges that Moscow had imposed on Trotsky. The team investigated the charges imposed by Moscow on Trotsky. After carefully studying the factual material of the “Copenhagen Incident,” the panel came to this conclusion.
“It turned out that in 1932 the ‘Bristoli’ hotel in Copenhagen no longer existed. Therefore, it is clear that Goltzmann could not have met with Sheldorf in this hotel. Yet he claims to have done so. He agreed with Sheldorf that he would ‘stay’ at this hotel and meet Sheldorf there, and says that the meeting did take place at the hotel’s registry office …….”
“We have the right to be sure …… that Goltzman did not meet with Sheldorf there, nor did he go with him to see Trotsky. Goltzman did not meet Trotsky in Copenhagen.”
In addition to debunking Goltzmann’s “confession,” the task force established with absolute accuracy that during the period from November 23 to December 2, 1932, when Trotsky was in Copenhagen, Sheldorf was not and could not have been in Copenhagen. It was not easy for a team organized by John June, which was not authorized by the state, did not have access to state archives, and could not hire a private detective, to collect such a large and indisputable body of evidence. This evidence primarily concerns the meeting between Sheldorf and Goltzman. Here, I will cite only two pieces of evidence.
The first is that Sheidov’s grade book, the examination papers, dated and signed by the school authorities and the teacher, and the attendance book, which prove that Trotsky was in Copenhagen during the days when his son was taking examinations in Berlin.
The second article. are the private letters of Sheidov to his parents. These letters irrefutably prove that he was indeed in Berlin from November 23 to December 3, 1932. He was indeed in Berlin. The following is a letter he wrote to his parents when they were about to leave Denmark. He wrote a letter.
“Dear parents, you are only a few hours away from Berlin for another day and a half, but I cannot come to visit you! The Germans were not willing to extend my stay in Germany because of my temporary departure from Berlin, and if the Germans did not agree, I would not get an entry visa to Denmark, and even if they did agree to give me a visa, they would want me to leave and not return to Berlin.”
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