His popular lecture course on the history of the Soviet Union was one of the largest courses there in the 1980s, and was commonly referred to as "Wolfgang." One of Leonhard's students at Yale was the future president George W. Bush, who wrote that Leonhard's History of the Soviet Union was "one of my most memorable courses," and "an introduction to the struggle between tyranny and freedom, a battle that has held my attention for the rest of my life. Leonhard was a visiting professor at the universities of Michigan at Ann Arbor in the United States; and Mainz, Trier, Kiel, Chemnitz, and Erfurt in both West Germany and the former East Germany. He delivered lectures in places including Tokyo, Bombay, Accra, Ghana, and Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was the author of numerous books and essays on Eastern Europe and Communism. His 1955 memoir, "Die Revolution entlässt ihre Kinder" ("Child of the Revolution"), was translated into many languages and was an international bestseller. In 1987, when West German President Richard von Weizsäcker visited the Soviet Union, Leonhard was able to return to that country for the first time since 1945. Afterwards he paid regular visits to Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe. He has also had meetings with a number of acquaintances from his life in Russia and East Germany. Several times he observed elections in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OECD). Wolfgang Leonhard's wife, Elke Leonhard, was an SPD member of the "Bundestag", the German parliament, from 1990 to 2005. Leonhard died on August 17, 2014 at a hospital in Daun, Germany from a long illness at the age of 93.