a number of senior kpd leaders in exile were caught up in joseph stalin's great purge of 1937–38 and executed, among them hugo eberlein, heinz neumann, hermann remmele, fritz schulte and hermann schubert, or sent to the gulag, like margarete buber-neumann. still others, like gustav von wangenheim and erich mielke (later the head of the stasi in east germany), denounced their fellow exiles to the nkvd. willi münzenberg, the kpd's propaganda chief, was murdered in mysterious circumstances in france in 1940. the nkvd is believed to have been responsible.