 Complete the following phrase:  Walter Ulbricht, the East German leader was one of a relatively tight-knit group of German communists who spent the war in Moscow, and then turned up in Germany at the end of April 1945 on a nation building mission, mandated by the Soviet leadership: Ulbricht would always remain close to Moscow. Current knowledge suggests that Stalins mistrust of Paul Merker dated back at least to 1940, when Merker had shared with Comintern and German Communist party colleagues in Moscow criticism concerning the August 1939 