[1][2] Wolfgang Harich was a leading member of The Group: he was also a man whose name had been on the list of potentially helpful supporters that Walter Ulbricht brought with him from Moscow on 2 May 1945 when he arrived on his nation building mission.
[3][4] During the de-Stalinization period, and particularly after First-secretary Khrushchev's "secret" speech of February 1956, in which he criticized Stalin, discussion groups developed spontaneously in Poland, Hungary and in East Germany, comprising Marxist intellectuals, and calling for reforms from within The Party that were, for the most part, aligned with the national objectives of the communist states.
The most important of these discussion groups was identified as the "circle of like minded persons", which for the most part comprised employees and authors of the country's leading publishing house, Aufbau-Verlag, and of the weekly newspaper "Sonntag" ("Sunday").
Contacts existed between Georg Lukács in Hungary, Ernst Bloch in Leipzig, Paul Merker and Johannes R. Becher (known as the author of East Germany's recently adopted national anthem).
[5][10] Addressing the court, Janka resolutely declared his innocence: The trials were attended by representatives of the country's cultural elite, including Anna Seghers, Helene Weigel and Willi Bredel.