At the beginning of October 1950 Maria Weiterer started work in Berga (southeast of Gera) as a book keeper and statistician at Plant 3 of the wool and silk plant. She was not as badly treated as Paul Merker, but her new life nevertheless counted as "banishment". She made several applications for readmission to party membership but these, initially, were not successful. Nevertheless, in 1952 she was promoted, becoming a head of department at the Novotex works in Berga. Back in Berlin there was by now a slow retreat from paranoia on the part of the authorities following the death of Stalin, which accelerated after what was termed (in the early days without irony) Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech" to the 20th Party Congress in February 1956. Weiterer was quietly readmitted into the party at the end of 1954 or early in 1955. Within the party she was granted a partial rehabilitation. Her application for a full official rehabilitation was at this point rejected by the party Central Committee, however.