Wolfgang Leonhard

Wolfgang Leonhard (born 16 April 1921, Vienna) is a German political author, publicist, and historian.

Leonhard fled in 1935 with his mother from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union. In 1943 he became a member of the national committee "Freies Deutschland". As one of the first exiled communists he returned to Germany in late April 1945 with the so-called "Gruppe Ulbricht", a special command of politicians and instructors.

As he recognised that the aim of the communists was a new authoritarian regime he fled again in 1949 and went first to Yugoslavia, then to West Germany.

Knowing well the mechanisms of Stalinism, Leonhard became an expert on the Soviet Union, worked as a lecturer at Columbia University, N.Y., and Yale University, but also as a political advisor in Germany, where he was known as the "astrologer of the Kremlin".

Leonhard's most famous book is "Child of the Revolution" (Pathfinder Press, 1979, ISBN 0-906133-26-2) describing his political way from 1935 up to his flight in 1949.