In 1934 , she and her husband took an active part against Engelbert Dollfuss in the Austrian Civil War , forcing them to flee Austria . They first went to Czechoslovakia , where her husband got a job working for the press office of the Comintern . While in exile , she became a member of the KPÖ , then outlawed . Von Mayenburg joined the Red Army and became a spy , traveling all over Germany and at one point sought out von Hammerstein-Equord to spy on him for the Soviet secret service . On one spy mission , she bumped into Lion Feuchtwanger on a train . When the Stalinist purges removed the leadership of von Mayenburg 's division , her assignments stopped coming . She was a major , but unemployed
Stalinist purges
Great Purge
Ruth von Mayenburg