Dr. Erich Mende (October 28, 1916 in Groß Strehlitz – May 6, 1998 in Bonn) was a German politician of the FDP and CDU. He was the leader of FDP 1960 - 1968.

Mende was born in Gross-Strehlitz, Upper Silesia, (today Poland). His father, Maximilian Mende, was the director of a secondary school and, as was usual among Catholics, a supporter of the Centre Party.

On graduating from grammar school in 1936 he decided to become a professional soldier and enlisted in the Wehrmacht's 84th Infantry Regiment at Gleiwitz, on the German-Polish frontier.

As a lieutenant of infantry he was badly wounded on the third day of the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He was wounded on two further occasions. In January 1945 as a major, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) for holding the front and thereby helping 10,000 East Prussian civilians and wounded escape the advancing Red Army. A little later he managed to get the survivors of the Silesian 102. Infanterie-Division (102nd Infantry Division), about 4,000 men, to the relative safety of being prisoners of war of the British.

Wolfgang Leonhard (born 16 April 1921) is a German political author, historian, and expert on Communism. He is the only living member of the Ulbricht Group.

Wolfgang (originally Vladimir) Leonhard was born in Vienna 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.

Peter Glotz (March 6, 1939 – August 25, 2005) was a German social democratic politician (Social Democratic Party) and social scientist.

Glotz was born in Eger, Sudetenland (now Cheb, Czech Republic), to a German father and a Czech mother. His father, an insurance-clerk and member of the Nazi party, worked for an "aryanized" Jewish factory in Prague. His family fled from Czechoslovakia in September 1945 and settled in Franconia. He studied Journalism, Philosophy, Germanistics, and Sociology at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and the University of Vienna, and became a doctor of philosophy in 1968.

Glotz became director of the Ludwig Maximilians University in 1969 and a member of the Landtag of Bavaria in 1970. He was a member of the German parliament from 1972 to 1977 and a parliamentary state secretary of the Federal Minister for Education and Research from 1974 until 1977.

From 1977 to 1981 Glotz was a senator for science and research in the state of Berlin, and became a member of the parliament again in 1983, resigning in 1996. He was secretary general of the SPD from 1981 to 1987. Glotz then became director of the University of Erfurt and professor for communication sciences.

Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛlmʊt ˈʃmɪt]; born 23 December 1918) is a German Social Democratic politician who served as Chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. Prior to becoming chancellor, he had served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance. He had also served briefly as Minister of Economics and as acting Foreign Minister. He is the oldest surviving German Chancellor and the last surviving person to have been solely Chancellor of West Germany (Helmut Kohl was Chancellor of both West Germany and reunified Germany). He is also the oldest living Federal German Minister, after the death of his Interior Minister Werner Maihofer.

Helmut Schmidt was born in Hamburg, as son of two teachers. He studied at Hamburg Lichtwark School, graduating in 1937. He was conscripted into military service and began serving with an anti-aircraft battery at Vegesack near Bremen during World War II. After brief service on the Eastern Front he returned to Germany in 1942 to work as a trainer and advisor at the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. Also in 1942, on 27 June, he married his childhood sweetheart Hannelore "Loki" Glaser (3 March 1919 – 21 October 2010), with whom he fathered two children: Helmut Walter (26 June 1944–February 1945, died of meningitis), and Susanne (b. 1947), who works in London for Bloomberg Television. Toward the end of the war, from December 1944 onwards, he served as an Oberleutnant in the artillery on the Western Front. He was captured by the British in April 1945 on Lüneburg Heath and was a prisoner of war until August. During his service in World War II Schmidt was awarded the Iron Cross.

Georg Leber (born 7 October 1920 in Obertiefenbach) is a German politician in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

After serving in the Luftwaffe (the German air force) in World War 2, he joined the SPD in 1947. In 1957, he was elected the to the Bundestag, which he was a member of until 1983.

In 1966, Leber was appointed to the position of Minister for Transportation for the grand coalition. He kept this position and became Minister for Postal Service and Long-Distance Communication under the joint SPD-FDP administration. 1972 he gave up both positions and became Minister of Defence. Under his ministership the Bundeswehr was expanded and the Universities of the Bundeswehr were founded in Munich and Hamburg. In 1978 he retired from his position after a controversy in the defense ministry involving eavesdropping. From 1979 to 1983, at which point he gave up his mandate, he was the Vice-President of the Bundestag.