An Interview with Dimitrov

'Goering wants me to be executed!'

'A door was opened,' wrote the correspondent, 'and Dimitrov entered, accompanied by a guard... His first words revealed that he was suffering.'
'Physically I feel allright,' he said. 'It is true that I have been smoking much, but I am in good spirit. You can easily understand that. For five months in manacles, three months before the Court, and in the end - this. No, I am not in good shape. The prison has an adverse effect on a man like myself... Why do they not release me? I understand that Goering wants me to be executed, and I too would think like him if I were a member of the German government, but to keep a man in prison after a verdict of 'not guilty' - that is what I cannot understand. I protest against this, and believe that you too will protest for me.'
'For a moment,' wrote the correspondent, 'I caught a glimpse of that Dimitrov who had resisted judges, lawyers and witnesses... a man fighting for his life.'
'When set free,' explained Dimitrov, 'I shall not go to Russia. Russia is the motherland of every revolutionary, but I have not lost my Bulgarian citizenship, and I wish to go to my own country. I sent a letter to the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Moushanov, but do not doubt that he will have me arrested at the frontier
To the journalist's question whether after his release he would not leave for America to shoot films, Dimitrov explained with a smile: 'Of course not. I shall continue to fight for my Communist ideals. I am a Communist, a true Communist and shall always be a Communist.'
London, February 7, 1934