Manfred Stern
Communist, comintern and spy of the Soviet military intelligence, GRU (1896–1954)
Manfred (Moses) Stern (Russian: Манфред (Мойше) Штерн; also known as Emilio Kléber, Lazar Stern, Moishe Stern, Mark Zilbert; 1896–1954) was a member of the GRU, Soviet military intelligence. He served as a spy in the United States, as a military advisor in China, and gained fame under his nom de guerre as General Kléber, leader of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.
Early life
Stern was born into a Jewish family in present-day Chernivtsi Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast, in western Ukraine on the border with Romania, which was at the time in the Duchy of Bukovina, a province of Austria-Hungary. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna.
World War I and the Russian Revolution
Drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army at the beginning of World War I, he was captured by the Tsarist forces and taken to a prisoner of war camp in Siberia. Freed after the 1917 October Revolution, he became a Bolshevik and joined the Red Army. He then led a partisan unit in Siberia against the White Army of Admiral Alexander Kolchak and fought in Mongolia against the warlord Roman von Ungern-Sternberg and his ally, the religious leader Bogd Khan. In 1921 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of the short-lived Far Eastern Republic.
After the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922 he returned to Moscow and enrolled at the Military Academy. Upon graduation, in 1924, he joined Walter Krivitsky (also a Jew from Galicia) in the Red Army's Fourth Department, which was in charge of military intelligence (and which later evolved into GRU).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Manfred Stern” as communist, comintern and spy of the Soviet military intelligence, GRU (1896–1954). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as communist, comintern and spy of the Soviet military intelligence, GRU (1896–1954). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1028974. VIAF identifies the subject as 98237459. The Library of Congress control number is nb2001051644. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1896, 1954, 1917 and 1921.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Manfred Stern”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Manfred Stern primary sources, Manfred Stern archive and Manfred research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Manfred Stern”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Manfred Stern” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.