Editing Walter Ulbricht (section)

==Nazi and war years==
[[File:Rotmord - Fahndungsplakat der Berliner Polizei (1933).jpg|thumb|"Help with the Search for the Red Murderers": Ulbricht (bottom left) on a wanted poster for the killing of Anlauf and Lenck, 1933]]
The [[Nazi Party]] attained power in Germany in January 1933, and very quickly began a purge of Communist and Social Democrat leaders in Germany. Following the arrest of the KPD's leader, Ernst Thälmann, Ulbricht campaigned to be Thälmann's replacement as head of the party.

Ulbricht lived in exile in Paris and [[Prague]] from 1933 to 1937. The German Popular Front under the leadership of [[Heinrich Mann]] in Paris was dissolved after a campaign of behind-the-scenes jockeying by Ulbricht to place the organization under the control of the Comintern. Ulbricht tried to persuade the KPD founder [[Willi Münzenberg]] to go to the Soviet Union, allegedly so that Ulbricht could have "them take care of him". Münzenberg refused. He would have been in jeopardy of arrest and purge by the NKVD, a prospect in both Münzenberg's and Ulbricht's minds.<ref>Frank, Mario, ''Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie'' (Berlin 2001), 124–139.</ref> Ulbricht spent some time in Spain during the [[Spanish Civil War|Civil War]], as a Comintern representative, ensuring the murder of Germans serving on the Republican side who were regarded as not sufficiently loyal to Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]]; some were sent to Moscow for trial, others were executed on the spot.<ref>Robert Solomon Wistrich, ''Who's Who in Nazi Germany'', Routledge, 2001; John Fuegi, ''Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics and the Making of the Modern Drama'', Grove Press, 2002, p.354; Noel Annan, ''Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany'', Cornell University Press, 1997, p.176</ref> {{Better source needed|reason=works cited do not concern spanish civil war or Ulbricht's contribution|date=May 2013}} Ulbricht lived in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945, leaving from [[Hotel Lux]] to return to Germany on 30 April 1945.{{Better source needed|reason=entire section is dependent on a single source, which is misrepresented in the information|date=May 2013}}

At the time of the signing of the [[Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact]], in August 1939, Ulbricht and the rest of the German Communist Party had supported the treaty.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Ulbricht was active in a group of German communists under NKVD supervision called the [[National Committee for a Free Germany]] (a group including, among others, the poet [[Erich Weinert]] and the writer [[Willi Bredel]]) which, among other things, translated propaganda material into German,<ref name=Adam>{{Cite book |last1=Adam |first1=Wilhelm |first2=Otto |last2=Ruhle |translator=Tony Le Tissier |title=With Paulus at Stalingrad |publisher=Pen and Sword Books Ltd. |year=2015 |isbn=9781473833869 |pages=178–179}}</ref> prepared broadcasts directed at the invaders, and interrogated captured German officers. In February 1943, following the surrender of the German Sixth Army at the close of the [[Battle of Stalingrad]], Ulbricht, Weinert and [[Wilhelm Pieck]] conducted a Communist political rally in the center of Stalingrad which many German prisoners were forced to attend.