 As early as July 1946 the occupying powers permitted Gerstner to visit France in order to say "farewell" to people whom he had last known under wartime conditions (and possibly also to thank in person some of those whose written testimonies had contributed to his release from detention six months earlier).In Autumn 1946 he was recruited into the "National German administration for inter-zonal and foreign trade" (""Deutsche Zentralverwaltung für Interzonen- und Außenhandel"") which the Soviets were setting up.Meanwhile the Communist Party of Germany had disappeared, subsumed, along with the Social Democrats (if only, effectively, in the Soviet zone) into the new Socialist Unity Party (""Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands"" / SED), as the result of a contentious political merger implemented in April 1946 and intended, it was said, to unite the political left as a bulwark against a return of fascism.