He returned early in 1950 to what had recently, in October 1949, been relaunched as the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), a separated Soviet sponsored German state with political and socio-economic structures consciously modelled on those of the Soviet Union itself. He promptly joined the new nation's ruling &lt;a href="Socialist%20Unity%20Party%20of%20Germany"&gt;Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED)&lt;/a&gt;. In 1950/51 he taught at the Trades Union Federation Academy in Beesenstedt, latterly serving as the institution's deputy head. Between 1952 and 1956 he studied at the Party Central Committee's prestigious - as it was known at that time - emerging with a doctorate. He remained at the institute, now with a succession of teaching posts, for another decade. Between 1957 and 1964, and again between 1966 and 1969, he held the top teaching chair for Marxist–Leninist philosophy. In 1962 he was appointed Professor of historical materialism at the institute. From 1964 till 1966 he was also deputy director of the Party Central Committee's Institute for Opinion Research, also serving during this period as a member of the Politburo's Agitprop Commission.