Leipzig had been liberated from Nazi control by United States forces in April 1945 , but by that time a different postwar division of Germany had been agreed between the victorious leaders . In July 1945 the Americans pulled back to be replaced by Soviet forces . The central third of what had been Germany was now administered as the Soviet occupation zone , to be relaunched , in October 1949 , as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ) . In Leipzig , Fritz Selbmann immediately took on the leadership of the " Provisional Central Committee of the Antifascist Bloc " ( '' " Provisorischen Zentralausschusses des Antifaschistischen Blocks " '' ) . It is not entirely clear what this involved , but it was in any case only one of several leadership roles within the political structure that came his way , as he joined with like-minded comrades , in the upbeat language of those times , to overcome the destruction of war , develop a national economy and build a socialist future ( '' " ... beim Aufbau des Sozialismus bedeutende Verdienste erwarben " '' ) . Another office to which the military authorities appointed him in 1945 was as First Secretary of the Communist Party District Leadership ( '' " Kreisleitung " '' ) for Leipzig . In August 1945 he was appointed president of the Regional Labour Office ( '' " ... des Landesarbeitsamtes " '' ) and in September 1945 he was made Regional Vice-president for State Administration in Saxony . In October 1946 , as seemingly more long-term political institutions emerged , he was elected a member of the regional parliament ( Sächsischer Landtag ) , resigning ( as his national political responsibilities increased ) only on 30 June 1950 . Additionally , in December 1946 he was appointed Economics and Planning Minister in the State of Saxony , a position he retained till 1948 . ( This was part of a tier of government that would cease to exist - formally - by the end of 1952 , as an aggressive centralisation of political power took hold . ) In April 1946 the new Socialist Unity Party ( '' " Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands " '' / SED ) was successfully launched ( if only in Germany 's Soviet zone ) by means of a contentious political merger which was intended , it was explained , to ensure that political divisions on the left would never again leave the way open for the election to power of a populist right wing political party . It was an irony not lost on western commentators that over the next few years the SED itself became the ruling party in a new kind of one-party German state . During 1946 Fritz Selbmann was one of thousands of Communist Party members who lost no time in signing their party memberships across to the new party . He was a member of the political leadership class : a return to national politics beckoned . In 1948 , after stepping down from his regional ministerial position in Saxony , Selbmann moved to ( East ) Berlin . He was appointed deputy chairman of the German Economic Commission , which can be described as " the top administrative body " in the Soviet occupation zone . He also enjoyed responsibility during 1948/49 for the " National Industrial Department " ( '' " Hauptverwaltung Industrie " '' ) . The establishment of the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ) in October 1949 saw the administrative structures in the Soviet occupation zone replaced . Ministers replaced administrators and Vasily Chuikov , till 1949 head of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany , became instead head of the People 's Control Commission . In some ways the structural changes accompanying the launch of East Germany were more apparent than real . Selbmann was one of several senior administrators who became a government minister
had been agreed
Yalta Conference
Fritz Selbmann