In the immediate postwar period it was possible to believe that the division of Germany into four separately administered zones might be a relatively short term expedient. After 1948 it became harder to believe in German reunification as a practical proposition. The events leading up to the 1948 Berlin Blockade made it clear that reunification on Soviet terms could never be acceptable to the United States and reunification on western terms could never be acceptable to the Soviet Union. Through the 1950s cold war tensions grew, leaving Germany with one of the most technically sophisticated and deadly borders in the world, not on its outer edge, but down its middle. In August 1948 Erich Raddatz left the SED and returned, again, to the Social Democratic Party. Over the next few years he found himself singled out for media criticism from East German media, but his popularity in his West Berlin home base seems not to have suffered from his record of sometimes choosing the "wrong" party. By the time of his retirement from his council duties in 1959 he was becoming known by the affectionate soubriquet "Papa Raddatz", or even "Opa {"Grandpa"} Raddatz". Along with his social affairs portfolio as "Bezirksstadtrat", between 1955 and 1959 he also served as deputy mayor of Neukölln.