Question over death of Gerda Taro

Gerda Taro was the first female war photographer. She photographed the Spanish Civil War. We’ll be celebrating her work at the Frontline Club on 17 October. Writing in the New Statesman Robin Stummer believes the pictures the 26-year old later became famous for are what led to her murder,

According to the German academic Irme Schaber, who has written two studies of the photo grapher, Taro had close personal links to the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands – or Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany – itself on Stalin’s hit list. This would have been known to the Soviet leader’s agents. Indeed, one of Taro’s close circle in Madrid was the Pravda correspondent Mikhail Koltsov, a Soviet secret police officer. [Willy Brandt, later chancellor of West Germany, was a young socialist volunteer in Spain], says Schaber, was convinced Taro had been targeted because of her perceived lack of loyalty to Moscow. The “accident”, he always maintained, was no such thing. link