Wolfgang Leonhard

Wolfgang Leonhard was a German political author and historian of the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic and Communism. A German Communist whose family had fled Hitler's Germany and who was educated in the Soviet Union, after World War II Leonhard became one of the founders and leaders of the German Democratic Republic until he became disillusioned and fled in 1949, first defecting to Yugoslavia and then moving to West Germany in 1950 and later to the United Kingdom. In 1956 he moved to the United States, where he was a popular and influential professor at Yale University from 1966 to 1987, teaching the history of communism and the Soviet Union, topics about which he wrote several books. After the Cold War ended, he returned to Germany.

16 April 1921

Born on the same birth date (16 April 1921): Peter Ustinov

Born on the same birth day (16 April): Benoît Bouchard • Dero Goi • Fifi D'Orsay • Hans Auer • Hans Sloane • John Hadley • John Norton (athlete) • John Watkins (Australian cricketer) • Lukas Haas • Prince Georg of Denmark • Sarah Kirsch • Vadim Kuzmin (physicist) • Vickie Guerrero • Wright brothers

Born in the same month (April 1921): Angelo DiGeorge • Anna Lee Aldred • Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith • Elizabeth Wilson • Franco Corelli • Herman van Raalte • Jack Rayner • Jake Warren • Jan Sterling • Judy Agnew • Leon Henkin • Robert Cliche • Robert Karvelas • Rowland Evans • Sheb Wooley • Thomas Schelling