Simplify the following text for a Grade 11 native English-speaking person.
Original: The licence was handed over to the first team of editors consisting of Emil Carlebach , Hans Etzkorn , Wilhelm Karl Gerst , Otto Grossmann , Wilhelm Knothe , Paul Rodemann and Arno Rudert , a progressive think-tank of social democrats , political Catholics and communists , who had spent years in the resistance and Nazi concentration camps or in exile .
Simplified: The licence was handed over to the first team of editors consiting of Emil Carlebach , Hans Etzkorn , Wilhelm Karl Gerst , Otto Grossmann , Wilhelm Knothe , Paul Rodemann and Arno Rudert . There were social democrats , political katholics and communists , who had spent years in the resistance and nazi concentration camps or in exile .