In spring 1933 Adolf Hitler started a campaign of discrimination and intimidation against Jews, depriving them of their property and citizenship. Lasker and his wife Martha, who were both Jewish, left Germany the same year. After a stay in England, in 1935 they were invited to live in the USSR by Nikolai Krylenko, the Commissar of Justice responsible for the Moscow show trials and also Sports Minister. Krylenko was an enthusiastic supporter of chess. In the USSR, Lasker renounced his German citizenship and received Soviet citizenship. He took up residence in Moscow, and was given a post at Moscow's Institute for Mathematics, and a post of trainer of the USSR national team.