Gå ubegrenset med Magzter GOLD

Gå ubegrenset med Magzter GOLD

Få ubegrenset tilgang til over 9000 magasiner, aviser og premiumhistorier for bare

$149.99
 
$74.99/År

Prøve GULL - Gratis

The Collaborators

The Atlantic

|

July - August 2020

What causes people to abandon their principles in support of a corrupt regime? And how do they find their way back?

- By Anne Applebaum

The Collaborators

On a cold March afternoon in 1949, Wolfgang Leonhard slipped out of the East German Communist Party Secretariat, hurried home, packed what few warm clothes he could fit into a small briefcase, and then walked to a telephone box to call his mother. “My article will be finished this evening,” he told her. That was the code they had agreed on in advance. It meant that he was escaping the country, at great risk to his life.

Though only 28 years old at the time, Leonhard stood at the pinnacle of the new East German elite. The son of German Communists, he had been educated in the Soviet Union, trained in special schools during the war, and brought back to Berlin from Moscow in May 1945, on the same airplane that carried Walter Ulbricht, the leader of what would soon become the East German Communist Party. Leonhard was put on a team charged with re-creating Berlin’s city government.

He had one central task: to ensure that any local leaders who emerged from the postwar chaos were assigned deputies loyal to the party. “It’s got to look democratic,” Ulbricht told him, “but we must have everything in our control.”

FLERE HISTORIER FRA The Atlantic

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

CANADA IS KILLING ITSELF

THE COUNTRY GAVE ITS CITIZENS THE RIGHT TO DIE...DOCTORS ARE STRUGGLING TO KEEP UP WITH DEMAND.

time to read

28 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

WHY MARRIAGE SURVIVES

The institution has adapted, and is showing new signs of resilience.

time to read

9 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

The Forgotten Still-Life Prodigy

The 17th-century painter Rachel Ruysch was once more famous than Vermeer.

time to read

9 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

THIS IS WHAT THE END OF THE LIBERAL WORLD ORDER LOOKS LIKE

In a post-American world, greed and nihilism are destroying Sudan.

time to read

39 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

The Judgments of Muriel Spark

The novelist Muriel Spark died almost 20 years ago, but she still regularly appears on lists of top comic novelists to read on this subject or that. Crave more White Lotus-level skewering of the ridiculous rich? Try Memento Mori, The New York Times suggests. An acerbic take on boring dinner parties? Symposium. Interested in “the fun and funny aspects of being a teacher”? Read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie— also good for learning how to be a highly inappropriate teacher, if you want to know that too.

time to read

12 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

Playing Mailman

A new memoir considers what public service is, and what it isn't.

time to read

8 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

Chasing le Carré in Corfu

If you're trying to find someone who doesn't want to be found, you don't go to the obvious places.

time to read

20 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

THE MAN WHO ATE NASA

The agency once projected America's loftiest ideals. Then it ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.

time to read

27 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

CAPTAIN RON'S GUIDE TO FEARLESS FLYING

The pilot who calms the nerves of anxious fliers

time to read

7 mins

September 2025

The Atlantic

The Atlantic

GOING BACK

What home meant before, and after, Hurricane Katrina

time to read

10 mins

September 2025

Translate

Share

-
+

Change font size