Council for a Democratic Germany

The Council for a Democratic Germany (CDG) was founded on 3 May 1944 in New York City. Its founding was a reaction to the founding of the National Committee for a Free Germany in Moscow in July 1943. Some of the founding members brought experiences of previous similar organizations with them, such as the ''Lutetia-Kreis''. The Council saw itself as representing all German people. Its membership included socialists, social democrats, communists, middle-class democrats, former members of the Centre Party, writers, artists, and scientists. This gathering of exiles was to serve as a platform for opinion-shaping and exerting political influence. The chairman was Paul Tillich, a Protestant theologian at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. He gave the Council its specific political-theological shape. No other exile organization brought together a similarly wide spectrum of figures in politics and the arts. Provided by Wikipedia