Walter Ulbricht (30 June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 (and then Honorary "Chairman" until his death), he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (spending the years of Nazi rule in exile in the Soviet Union) in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 he was the East German head of state until his own death in 1973.

Ulbricht was born in Leipzig, Saxony, where his father worked as a tailor. He spent eight years in primary school (Volksschule). After leaving school, he trained to be a joiner. Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Walter Ulbricht joined the party in 1912.

Ulbricht served in World War I from 1915 to 1917 in Galicia on the Eastern Front, and in the Balkans. He deserted in 1917, as he had opposed the war from the beginning. Imprisoned in Charleroi, in 1918 he was released during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. In 1917 he became a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) after it split off from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) over support of Germany's participation in World War I. During the German Revolution he became a member of the soldier's soviet of his army corps and later a member of the KPD in 1920, joining its Central Committee in 1923. Ulbricht attended the International Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow in 1924/1925. The electors subsequently voted him into the regional parliament of Saxony (Sächsischer Landtag) in 1926. He became a Member of the Reichstag for South Westphalia from 1928 to 1933 and served as KPD chairman in Berlin from 1929.

Helmut Müller (born 31 May 1952 in Heidelberg) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He has been the mayor of Wiesbaden since 2007.

Müller was born in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg. After finishing his abitur in 1972, he studied economics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. He earned his Diplom in 1978.

Fritz Schenk (10 March 1930 in Helbra near Eisleben; † 4 May 2006 in Frankfurt am Main) was a German publicist, journalist and television anchorman. He become well known for the general public thanks to his participation in ZDF-Magazin.

Schenk was born into a politically active and traditionally social democratic family in Helbra. A number of his family members were persecuted by Nazis in the Third Reich.

His father was a hydraulic engineer and worked for years managing a waterworks in Harz region, German Democratic Republic. When Fritz Schenk later escaped to the Federal Republic of Germany, his father was dismissed from the job and died of heart infarction on 10 November 1962 after an interrogation by the Stasi. Schenk later accused Communists throughout all of his life of having killed his father, whereas Nazis had just treated him in an unhuman manner

Since 1951, Fritz Schenk was married to Rosemarie (maiden name Müller). They had three sons.

Schenk joined the German Social Democratic Party after World War II. When the party was forcibly unified with the Communist Party of Germany, he became a member of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

Lothar Bisky (born 17 August 1941) is a German politician. He was the chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). In June 2007 he became co-chairman of the The Left (Die Linke) party, formed by a merger of the PDS and the much smaller Labour and Social Justice – The Electoral Alternative. From 2007 until 2010 he was the President of the Party of the European Left. Also, he is the Publisher of the socialist newspaper Neues Deutschland.

Bisky was born in Zollbrück, Pomerania, Germany (now Korzybie, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland), from where he came after 1945 as refugee to Schleswig-Holstein in northern West Germany. In order to get a free university education he emigrated to Communist GDR at the age of 18, and after facing initial doubts due to his heritage was allowed to join the Socialist Unity Party in 1963, but did not rise to leadership positions until shortly after the fall of communism and the resulting purge of hardliners from the party. He was rector of the University of Film and Television (Potsdam-Babelsberg) from 1986 to 1990. In 1991 he became a member of the board of directors of regional television channel ORB (now part of RBB.)

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.