would have been a welcome Christmas treat for East German city-dwellers. This time, not all the individuals whose freedom was being bartered were dissident East Germans imprisoned following failed attempts to escape from the country. There were also 25 employees of the West German and US intelligence services who had ended their missions incarcerated in East German jails. In addition, and usually, the human trade was not all one-way. There were also four West Germans who had been caught spying for Soviet intelligence who were now to be removed from their West German jail cells and sent across to the east. These included Margret Höke, a former secretary in the office of the West German president. And along with the espionage related cases, there were 100 "political prisoners" released from East German jails. During the final weeks of 1989 the pace of events accelerated, as others who had been imprisoned following failed escape attempts were simply released. On 19 December 1989 Wolfgang Vogel, having driven with his wife in their gold coloured Mercedes-Benz across into West Berlin in order to sign off the paper work, one by one, on each of the final tranche of 100 political former prisoners, was able to send a telex to the Ministry in Bonn: "From 24 December 1989 there are no longer any political detainees in the prisons of the German Democratic Republic". Later career The events of November/December 1989 led the West German government to conclude that a Ministry for Intra-German Relations was no longer necessary, and it was dissolved, formally on 20 December 1989. The minister remained in office until 17 January 1990, which was the final day before the opening of the new parliament, and it is likely that Walter Priesnitz continued to serve as the Ministry Secretary of state until that date. He served between January 1991 and March 1995 as Ministry Secretary of state at the Interior Ministry. Here he played a key role in negotiating and drawing up the reunification treaty and agreements under the ministerial direction of Wolfgang Schäuble, another law graduate. Priesnitz then served, between 1996 and 1999, as chairman of the executive board of BVVG Bodenverwertungs- und -verwaltungs GmbH, a state-owned company based in Berlin, created by the government in 1992 in order to administer, lease out and as possible progressively sell state-owned agricultural and forest land in the so-called "New states" "... neuen Bundesländer"