troops on 16 April 1945 but was left to Red Army on 1 July 1945. On December 15, 1945, the city issued 7 semi-postal postage stamps of its own to raise money for reconstruction. From 1945 onwards, Plauen fell into the Soviet occupation zone of Germany, which later became the German Democratic Republic (1949-1990). Plauen hosted a large Red Army occupation garrison and, in the last years of the GDR (DDR), an officer school of the Border Guards ("Grenztruppen der DDR"). The first mass demonstration against the communist regime in the GDR began in Plauen on 7 October 1989; this was the beginning of a series of mass demonstrations across the country and ultimately led to the re-unification of Germany in 1990. The exposé Fast Food Nation gives special mention to Plauen as the first city of the GDR to have a McDonald's restaurant following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In the district reform of 1 July 2008, Plauen lost its urban district status and was merged into the district Vogtlandkreis. Politics The first freely elected mayor after German reunification was Rolf Magerkord of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), who served from 1990 to 2000. The mayor was originally chosen by the city council, but since 1994 has been directly elected. Ralf Oberdorfer of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) was mayor between 2000 and 2021. The most recent mayoral election was held in two rounds on 13 June and 4 July 2021, in which Steffen Zenner (CDU) was elected. The most recent city council election was held on 26 May 2019, and the results were as follows: ! colspan=2| Party ! Votes ! % ! +/- ! Seats ! +/- |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Christian Democratic Union (CDU) | 20,717 | 23.7 | 11.7 | 11 | 5 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alternative for Germany (AfD) | 17,464 | 20.0 | New | 11 | New |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| The Left (Die Linke) | 12,728 | 14.5 | 6.9 | 6 | 3 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Social Democratic Party (SPD) | 12,245 | 14.0 | 5.0 | 6 | 2 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Free Democratic Party (FDP) | 8,687 | 9.9 | 2.6 | 4 | 1 |- | bgcolor=| | align=left| Alliance 90/The Greens (Grüne) | 7,529 | 8.6 | 2.7 | 3 | 1 |- | | align=left| Initiative