The main aspect of B. Traven’s life that has been disputed and fiercely debated is his parentage. Numerous theories emerged about his true identity, some more fantastic than others. It has been conclusively proved that the man who adopted B. Traven as his name in Mexico called himself Ret Marut in Germany. Ret Marut was a German seaman, stage actor and anarchist who edited the radical newspaper Der Ziegelbrenner (The Brick Burner) and a member of the government of the Bavarian Soviet Republic that was brutally suppressed by the government of Germany in May, 1919, leading to the arrest of Marut and a death sentence, which he escaped. After Traven’s death in 1969, his widow, Rosa Elena Luján, on Traven’s instructions, confirmed that he and Marut were the same person.  His career as an actor and later as a political pamphleteer has been traced back to 1907 by Rolf Recknagel and, in greater detail, by Karl Guthke, who wrote the best and most complete biography of B. Traven.

The most plausible account of his parentage was provided by Traven’s closest male friend in Mexico, Gabriel Figueroa, the great Mexican cinematographer. Traven was also godfather to Figueroa’s son, Gabriel Figueroa Flores. In December, 1990, Figueroa revealed to a French journalist, Ange-Dominique Bouzet, that Traven was born Moritz  Rathenau, the illegitimate son of Emil Rathenau, the German industrialist and founder of Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft (AEG), the largest electricity company in Germany), and an Irish actress, Helen Mareck.  Bouzet published an article on this in the French newspaper Libération on December 13, 1990. This information was provided to Figueroa by his cousin and sister-in-law Esperanza López Mateos, who was Traven’s agent and translator from 1941 until her death in 1951.  Figueroa explained his revelation to Traven’s stepdaughter Maria Eugenia (Malú) Montes de Oca Lujan de Heyman, the proprietor of the Traven Estate, and her husband Timothy Heyman, Managing Director of the Estate.

Figueroa’s revelation was followed up by Heyman,  who published an article on Traven’s parentage in May, 2019, coinciding with the hundredth anniversary of Traven’s escape from the death sentence in Munich in May, 1919, and the 50th anniversary of his death in 1969.

Evidence for Figueroa’s statement was discovered by  Heyman in a file inherited from his father by Gabriel Figueroa Jr.  The evidence includes a letter by Esperanza to Gabriel, where she calls Traven “Mauricio”, the Spanish version of Moritz, and a document spelling the German name of Allegemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft almost exactly, written by Figueroa, who knew nothing about Germany.  Other kinds of evidence provided by Heyman are philological, circumstantial and psychological. Traven is an almost exact anagram of “Rathenau”, and Marut converts to “Traum” which can easily become “Traven”.  Circumstantial evidence is that Traven used the title “Engineer” linked to another pseudonym “Traven Torsvan Croves” in Mexico, and Emil Rathenau was an engineer. Emil’s legitimate son (and Traven’s biological half-brother), Walther Rathenau, was also an engineer. Other circumstantial evidence is that Emil Rathenau died in 1915 and in that year Marut/Traven chose to leave Düsseldorf and went to Munich to start his magazine Der Ziegelbrenner, in which he claimed that he had “private means”, and it is speculated that the funds came from an inheritance from his father, Emil. The other circumstantial fact is that his half-brother Walther became Foreign Minister of Germany, the highest political office ever  occupied by a Jew in German history. Rathenau was assassinated on June 24, 1922 by members of a far right militia, Organization Consul, an act considered by many to have been the beginning of the Holocaust.  Marut left Germany in 1923, and the assassination of his half-brother could have been a contributing factor to his departure.

Finally, psychological evidence.  Traven was obsessed with identity, the main subject of his first novel The Death Ship and present in many other books. He was illegitimate and Jewish, which led to his adoption of pseudonyms from birth. His death sentence in 1919 and subsequent escape, and the murder of his halfbrother also affected him.  The death sentence made the adoption of pseudonyms a necessity.  When Traven became famous as a writer from Mexico, he continued to hide his identity when Mexico became infested by Nazi spies. Meanwhile, as Traven attracted more readers, they became more interested in his identity, and this actually contributed to sales.  Traven came to enjoy the mystery, turning necessity into an opportunity.

The irony of the so called “mystery” of Traven is that the only fact not conclusively “proved” about him is his parentage.  It is clear from the story of Traven’s life outlined above why he used pseudonyms. An important reason was illegitimacy. Emil Rathenau had a reason to keep the existence of an illegitimate son secret, from his family and the public. Traven, as a champion of the underclasses, had a reason to hide the fact he had a rich father. Pseudonyms, then as now, were common in the theater, Marut’s first profession. He went on to become a politician in Bavaria, and politicians at that time also used pseudonyms, the most notorious being Lenin (Ulianov), Trotsky (Bronstein), Stalin (Dugashvili) and Hitler (Schickelgruber). The death sentence, turning Marut into a fugitive from justice, made the use of a pseudonym imperative.  Traven became so used to using pseudonyms in public that he even used pseudonyms in private. At home in Mexico City, he was the “Skipper” and his family Rosa Elena Luján his wife, and Rosa Elena and Malú Montes de Oca, his stepdaughters, were First, Second and Third Mate, respectively.

None of the many other hypotheses for Traven’s parentage suggested by other “Travenologists” are as convincing as the Moritz Rathenau hypothesis.

Meanwhile, the archive held by the Traven Estate is one of the most voluminous left by any important writer. It contains objects and documents from his life in Germany as Ret Marut before and after his death sentence, including letters and stories written when he was in Düsseldorf, and guide books, train and theater tickets, and the library of a voracious reader. From the Mexican period, there are many original manuscripts of his novels  and stories (in German, English and Spanish), letters to his publishers, agents and producers beginning from the year of his arrival in 1924 until his death in 1969, correspondence with family and friends, and books of a person who continued to enjoy learning about the world and to perfect his art until his death in 1969. All give ample evidence and insight into his professional and personal life.