Feb 10, 1992
Dear Hank,
I received your letter this morning including the photos of Esperanza - clearly a very attractive young woman - her note to you, and the photostats of Traven's (Croves') letters to you concerning her death.
There is a dramatic story here. Your life, and the life of this world-famous author crossed paths, or met, in the person of this young and beautiful and talented Mexican woman. (who may have been half-German, and half-English!) Amy and Bill have, of course, told me that you served as Trotsky's bodyguard in Mexico City. If you haven't already done so you really ought to write an account, or a memoir of your life during those years. Whatever it's political meaning your life there has been the stuff of which historical drama is made.
I'm enclosing a copy of the letter which my friend Mike Baumann sent after I sent a copy of your 1st letter to him. I hope you don't mind my having done this. I felt that that letter was an historical testimony, a sort of historical document, more so than sinply a personal letter to me. And as I may have mentioned Mike is a Traven scholar whose written a book on Traven, and has had articles published both in Germany and here. He and Karl Guthke are at loggerheads over the "other man" theory. Mike is convinced - as his letter indicates - that Traven worked with an American, or had access to material written by an American. Guthke totally rejects this idea. But I'll let Mike's letter speak for itself. Mike's wife, Friedl, to whom he refers, is an historian, specializing in Mexican history. She is writing her dissertation on the German owned coffee plantations (or fincas?) in Chiapas. (She is Austrian herself.) That is why she has a special knowledge about that region.
So you can tell from Mike's letter he doesn't think much of Guthke's book. I, on the other hand, found it engrossing reading - most of it - even if it's not the whole story. I'm just sending that very short section dealing directly with Esperanza, and which should be of special interest to you.
Feb. 19, 1992
I got side tracked for a few days after writing the above. There isn't much more I can add at this point.
As for Traven-Croves one is left with your question, "Why did he lie so continuously?" He must have been covering up something - maybe the fact that he wasn't the sole author of the works which made him so famous. Or maybe something more personal. Also he must have enjoyed lying, enjoyed spinning a web of make-believe around himself, and "conning" others with his deceits. Liars of that ilk probably take pleasure in fooling others. It gives them a sense of superiority, of being in control.
But also on a psychological level, if, as Guthke says, he didn't know who his father was, and therefore didn't really know who he himself was, he may, even as a child, have gotten in the habit of making up stories - fantasies - about his father, and himself.
Well, enough of Traven.
I hope that all is well with you.
Franz