 One of the most influential figures in this process was Altiero Spinelli, author of the Ventotene Manifesto entitled "Towards a Free and United Europe" and smuggled out of their internment camp – the island of Ventotene – as early as 1941, well before the outcome of the war was safely predictable, and widely circulated in the resistance movements.Spinelli, Ursula Hirschmann and Colorni, Rossi and some 20 otherestablished, as soon as they were able to leave their internment camp, the Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE).The founding meeting, secretly held in Milan on the 27/28 August 1943, adopted a "political thesis" which, inter alia, stated