Wolfgang Leonhard
Encyclopedia
Wolfgang Leonhard is a German political author, historian, and expert on Communism. He is the only living member of the Ulbricht Group
.
as the son of writers Susanne and Rudolf Leonhard
. His mother had been a close friend of Rosa Luxemburg
's and Karl Liebknecht
's, the German Communist leaders, and was an active Communist herself. At the time of Wolfgang's birth, however, his parents were already divorced, and his mother had married the Soviet ambassador to Austria, Mieczysław Broński, under Soviet law. Susanne Leonhard worked as head of the press department of the embassy.
From 1931 on, Susanne Leonhard and her son lived in the "Artists' Colony" in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, the home of many left-wing intellectuals. Wolfgang attended Karl Marx
Grammar School and joined the youth organization of the Communist Party of Germany
, the "Young Pioneers
". As things grew more dangerous in Berlin, he was sent to Landschulheim Herrlingen, a private boarding school, in 1932.
After Adolf Hitler
was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Susanne Leonhard sent her son to a boarding school in Sweden. She visited him there in 1935, but during her visit, her antifascist group in Germany was exposed and she could not go back to Germany. She was not allowed to stay in Sweden either, so she made her 13-year-old son choose between exile in England and exile in the Soviet Union
. He chose the Soviet Union.
in Moscow, a school for the children of German and Austrian antifascists. A special children's home (Children's Home No. 6
) had been established in Moscow for Austrian and German orphans of fascism; Leonhard lived there from September 1936 to August 1939, when it was closed a week after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
, following months of pressure after a number of residents were arrested in the Hitler Youth Conspiracy
. Afterwards Leonhard enrolled as a student at the Moscow Institute for Foreign Languages.
1936 was the beginning of "The Great Purge", a period of arbitrary arrests and trials in the Soviet Union. Leonhard's mother was arrested by the secret police, NKVD
, in October 1936, and had to do forced labour for the next 12 years, mainly in the camp of Vorkuta
(see Gulag
). With the help of Wilhelm Pieck
, later President of the German Democratic Republic, Leonhard achieved her release in 1948.
After the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 the Germans there were deported to certain areas mainly in the southeast, and Leonhard had to go to Karaganda
but was able to continue his teacher training. A year later he was sent to the Comintern
school near Ufa
. Some of his teachers and fellow students there were to be found in leading positions after 1945, such as Paul Wandel, Heinz Hoffmann
and Markus Wolf
in the GDR and Jakub Berman
in Poland
. The eldest son of Yugoslav
partisan leader Josip Broz Tito
, Zarko, also attended the Comintern school at the time.
Leonhard's final exams at the Comintern school in the summer of 1943 coincided with the dissolution of the Comintern and the closure of the school. He was now employed by the "National Committee for a Free Germany
", an organization of prisoners of war and expatriates. First he worked for its weekly newspaper "Free Germany", whose editor-in-chief was Rudolf Herrnstadt
.
Anton Ackermann
, one of the leaders of the "National Committee", made Leonhard an announcer at the Committee's radio station, "Radio Free Germany".
had reached German territory. Each group consisted of ten members. Leonhard was in the Ulbricht Group
, led by Walter Ulbricht
, later (from 1950 to 1971) Secretary-General of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED). Their task was to organize the administration of the Soviet occupation zone. "It has to look democratic, but we must have control of everything," Ulbricht told them. Therefore deputy mayors and chief constables as well as heads of personnel departments and departments of education had to be Communists. Other administrative jobs could go to people of a different political persuasion in order gain support from as many groups as possible.
In the following years Leonhard continued to work for the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which became the Socialist Unity Party in April 1946 after the Social Democratic Party in the Soviet zone had been forced to merge with it. Among other things he was involved in journalism and political instruction. In September 1947 he became a lecturer in the history department of the party's college Karl Marx
.
On April 16, 1948, Walter Ulbricht gave a five-hour speech at the SED college outlining the plans for the Soviet-occupied sector. He identified the SED as the future governing power and that people should seek to reach their own goals through the state apparatus. This speech convinced Leonhard that Germany was not going to follow a different path to socialism, but would replicate the Stalinist system. In March 1949, he fled to Yugoslavia via Czechoslovakia. Yugoslavia had been expelled from Cominform
, the successor organization of Comintern under Russian leadership, and was establishing its own independent type of socialism.
In Yugoslavia, Leonhard was in charge of the German programmes of Belgrade Radio.
After his postgraduate studies at St Antony's College, Oxford University, from 1956 to 1958, and his work as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Russian Studies of Columbia University
, New York City
, in 1963 and 1964, Professor Leonhard taught Russian history and the history of international Communism at Yale University
from 1966 to 1987. One of his former student there was future president George W. Bush
, whose view on the struggle between tyranny and freedom he influenced a great deal.
He was a visiting professor at the universities of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the United States; and Mainz, Trier, Kiel, Chemnitz and Erfurt in Germany. Chemnitz University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1998. He is the author of numerous books and essays on Eastern Europe and Communism, and he gave countless talks on these subjects in places all over the globe, such as Tokyo, Bombay, Accra (Ghana) or Colombo (Sri Lanka).
Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder ("Child of the Revolution", 1955) was translated into many languages and was a world bestseller.
In 1987, when the then German president, Richard von Weizsäcker
, visited the Soviet Union, Leonhard was able to return to that country for the first time since 1945. Afterwards he paid regular visits to Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe. He has also had meetings with a number of acquaintances from his life in Russia and East Germany. Several times he observed elections in Russia and also in Belarus
and Ukraine
for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
.
Wolfgang Leonhard's wife, Elke Leonhard, was an SPD
member of the Bundestag
, the German parliament, from 1990 to 2005.
Ulbricht group
The Ulbricht Group, led by Walter Ulbricht, was a group of exiled German communists who flew from the Soviet Union back to Germany on April 30, 1945...
.
Early years
Wolfgang (originally Vladimir) Leonhard was born in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
as the son of writers Susanne and Rudolf Leonhard
Rudolf Leonhard
Rudolf Leonhard was a German author and communist activist.-Life:Leonhard came from a family of lawyers and studied law and Philology in Berlin and Göttingen...
. His mother had been a close friend of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
's and Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht
was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...
's, the German Communist leaders, and was an active Communist herself. At the time of Wolfgang's birth, however, his parents were already divorced, and his mother had married the Soviet ambassador to Austria, Mieczysław Broński, under Soviet law. Susanne Leonhard worked as head of the press department of the embassy.
From 1931 on, Susanne Leonhard and her son lived in the "Artists' Colony" in Wilmersdorf, Berlin, the home of many left-wing intellectuals. Wolfgang attended Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
Grammar School and joined the youth organization of the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
, the "Young Pioneers
Pioneer movement
A pioneer movement is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically joined the Young Communist League...
". As things grew more dangerous in Berlin, he was sent to Landschulheim Herrlingen, a private boarding school, in 1932.
After Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Susanne Leonhard sent her son to a boarding school in Sweden. She visited him there in 1935, but during her visit, her antifascist group in Germany was exposed and she could not go back to Germany. She was not allowed to stay in Sweden either, so she made her 13-year-old son choose between exile in England and exile in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He chose the Soviet Union.
In the Soviet Union
From 1935 to 1937 Leonhard attended Karl Liebknecht SchoolKarl Liebknecht School
The Karl Liebknecht School , named after Karl Liebknecht, was a German-language elementary school in Moscow. It was established for the children of German refugees to the Soviet Union. It opened in 1924 and was closed in 1939...
in Moscow, a school for the children of German and Austrian antifascists. A special children's home (Children's Home No. 6
Children's Home No. 6
Children's Home No. 6 was an orphanage in Moscow established for orphans from fascism. It was established for Austrian and German children and was considered a model in the Soviet Union, housing some 130 children...
) had been established in Moscow for Austrian and German orphans of fascism; Leonhard lived there from September 1936 to August 1939, when it was closed a week after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
, following months of pressure after a number of residents were arrested in the Hitler Youth Conspiracy
Hitler Youth Conspiracy
The Hitler Youth Conspiracy was a case investigated by the Soviet secret police, during the Great Purge in the late 1930s. Essentially a theory in search of evidence, it nonetheless resulted in the arrest of numerous German teenagers and some in their twenties and beyond, who were accused of having...
. Afterwards Leonhard enrolled as a student at the Moscow Institute for Foreign Languages.
1936 was the beginning of "The Great Purge", a period of arbitrary arrests and trials in the Soviet Union. Leonhard's mother was arrested by the secret police, NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
, in October 1936, and had to do forced labour for the next 12 years, mainly in the camp of Vorkuta
Vorkuta
Vorkuta is a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin at the Usa River. Population: - Labor camp origins :...
(see Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
). With the help of Wilhelm Pieck
Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...
, later President of the German Democratic Republic, Leonhard achieved her release in 1948.
After the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 the Germans there were deported to certain areas mainly in the southeast, and Leonhard had to go to Karaganda
Karaganda
Karagandy , more commonly known by its Russian name Karaganda, , is the capital of Karagandy Province in Kazakhstan. It is the fourth most populous city in Kazakhstan, behind Almaty , Astana and Shymkent, with a population of 471,800 . In the 1940s up to 70% of the city's inhabitants were ethnic...
but was able to continue his teacher training. A year later he was sent to the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
school near Ufa
Ufa
-Demographics:Nationally, dominated by Russian , Bashkirs and Tatars . In addition, numerous are Ukrainians , Chuvash , Mari , Belarusians , Mordovians , Armenian , Germans , Jews , Azeris .-Government and administration:Local...
. Some of his teachers and fellow students there were to be found in leading positions after 1945, such as Paul Wandel, Heinz Hoffmann
Heinz Hoffmann
Heinz Hoffmann was Minister of National Defense in the Council of Ministers of the German Democratic Republic, and since October 2, 1973 Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party .-Youth:Hoffmann came from a working class family...
and Markus Wolf
Markus Wolf
Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf was head of the General Intelligence Administration , the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Ministry for State Security . He was the MfS's number two for 34 years, which spanned most of the Cold War...
in the GDR and Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman was born into a middle-class Jewish family. Berman first became a prominent communist in prewar Poland. Toward the end of World War II he joined the Politburo of the Soviet-formed Polish United Workers' Party...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. The eldest son of Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
partisan leader Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, Zarko, also attended the Comintern school at the time.
Leonhard's final exams at the Comintern school in the summer of 1943 coincided with the dissolution of the Comintern and the closure of the school. He was now employed by the "National Committee for a Free Germany
National Committee for a Free Germany
The National Committee for a Free Germany was a German anti-Nazi organization that operated in the Soviet Union during World War II.- History :...
", an organization of prisoners of war and expatriates. First he worked for its weekly newspaper "Free Germany", whose editor-in-chief was Rudolf Herrnstadt
Rudolf Herrnstadt
Rudolf Herrnstadt was a German journalist and communist politicianmost notable for his anti-fascist activity as an exile from the Nazi German regime in the Soviet Union during the war and as a journalist in East Germany until his death, where he and Wilhelm Zaisser represented the anti-Ulbricht...
.
Anton Ackermann
Anton Ackermann
Anton Ackermann was an East German politician. In 1953, he briefly served as Minister of Foreign Affairs....
, one of the leaders of the "National Committee", made Leonhard an announcer at the Committee's radio station, "Radio Free Germany".
In East Germany
Leonhard was chosen as a member of one of the two groups of German communists who were the first to return to Germany as soon as the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
had reached German territory. Each group consisted of ten members. Leonhard was in the Ulbricht Group
Ulbricht group
The Ulbricht Group, led by Walter Ulbricht, was a group of exiled German communists who flew from the Soviet Union back to Germany on April 30, 1945...
, led by Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...
, later (from 1950 to 1971) Secretary-General of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, or SED). Their task was to organize the administration of the Soviet occupation zone. "It has to look democratic, but we must have control of everything," Ulbricht told them. Therefore deputy mayors and chief constables as well as heads of personnel departments and departments of education had to be Communists. Other administrative jobs could go to people of a different political persuasion in order gain support from as many groups as possible.
In the following years Leonhard continued to work for the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which became the Socialist Unity Party in April 1946 after the Social Democratic Party in the Soviet zone had been forced to merge with it. Among other things he was involved in journalism and political instruction. In September 1947 he became a lecturer in the history department of the party's college Karl Marx
Parteihochschule Karl Marx
The Party Academy Karl Marx was an academy that was founded in 1946 in the Soviet occupation zone. During the German Democratic Republic , it was subordinate to the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party...
.
Escape to Yugoslavia
Like, Anton Ackermann, Wolfgang Leonhard thought that the creation of a German socialist state would follow a more democratic pattern than the developments he had experienced in the Soviet Union. His first criticism and doubts about Stalinism came as early as in 1936, when his mother was arrested, but his basic belief in Marxism-Leninism persisted for years.On April 16, 1948, Walter Ulbricht gave a five-hour speech at the SED college outlining the plans for the Soviet-occupied sector. He identified the SED as the future governing power and that people should seek to reach their own goals through the state apparatus. This speech convinced Leonhard that Germany was not going to follow a different path to socialism, but would replicate the Stalinist system. In March 1949, he fled to Yugoslavia via Czechoslovakia. Yugoslavia had been expelled from Cominform
Cominform
Founded in 1947, Cominform is the common name for what was officially referred to as the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties...
, the successor organization of Comintern under Russian leadership, and was establishing its own independent type of socialism.
In Yugoslavia, Leonhard was in charge of the German programmes of Belgrade Radio.
In the West
From Yugoslavia Wolfgang Leonhard then went on to West Germany, where he worked as a political writer and as an expert on Eastern Europe.After his postgraduate studies at St Antony's College, Oxford University, from 1956 to 1958, and his work as a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Russian Studies of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, in 1963 and 1964, Professor Leonhard taught Russian history and the history of international Communism at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
from 1966 to 1987. One of his former student there was future president George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
, whose view on the struggle between tyranny and freedom he influenced a great deal.
He was a visiting professor at the universities of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the United States; and Mainz, Trier, Kiel, Chemnitz and Erfurt in Germany. Chemnitz University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1998. He is the author of numerous books and essays on Eastern Europe and Communism, and he gave countless talks on these subjects in places all over the globe, such as Tokyo, Bombay, Accra (Ghana) or Colombo (Sri Lanka).
Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder ("Child of the Revolution", 1955) was translated into many languages and was a world bestseller.
In 1987, when the then German president, Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard von Weizsäcker
Richard Karl Freiherr von Weizsäcker , known as Richard von Weizsäcker, is a German politician . He served as Governing Mayor of West Berlin from 1981 to 1984, and as President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1984 to 1994...
, visited the Soviet Union, Leonhard was able to return to that country for the first time since 1945. Afterwards he paid regular visits to Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe. He has also had meetings with a number of acquaintances from his life in Russia and East Germany. Several times he observed elections in Russia and also in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...
.
Wolfgang Leonhard's wife, Elke Leonhard, was an SPD
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
member of the Bundestag
Bundestag
The Bundestag is a federal legislative body in Germany. In practice Germany is governed by a bicameral legislature, of which the Bundestag serves as the lower house and the Bundesrat the upper house. The Bundestag is established by the German Basic Law of 1949, as the successor to the earlier...
, the German parliament, from 1990 to 2005.
See also
Wolfgang Leonhard, Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder. Köln (Kiepenheuer & Witsch) 1955; in Engl.: Child of the revolution. Transl. by C. M. Woodhouse. London (Collins) 1957- List of Eastern Bloc defectors