[2] A promising career was cut short, however, when he died as the result of a desert helicopter accident while accompanying Werner Lamberz on a trade mission to Libya.
1949 was also the year in which he joined the Free German Trade Union Federation ("Freier Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund " / FDGB) and the Society for German–Soviet Friendship ("Gesellschaft für Deutsch-Sowjetische Freundschaft" / DSF).
Between 1951 and 1953 he studied foreign policy at the "Walter Ulbricht" College of Administration at Babelsberg (Potsdam) and diplomacy-statecraft at the closely associated German academy for Government and Jurisprudence.
[1] Under the Leninist constitutional structure in operation, executive power in East Germany was concentrated not in any parliament, nor in the hands of government ministers but in the Party Central Committee.
Paul Markowski sat as an SED member of the National Parliament (Volkskammer) representing the Berlin electoral district between 1971 and his death in 1978.
[1] In March 1978 Markowski accompanied the media-savvy politician Werner Lamberz as part of a small delegation to Libya in order to negotiate a complex trade and investment deal with that country's leader.
[6] At 21.30 on 6 March 1978, shortly after taking off en route back from the tented encampment at Wadi Suf al-Jin (Wādī Sawfajjīn), the Super Frelon helicopter carrying the four-member East German delegation fell into a tailspin and crashed.
[6] The leadership in Libya did not permit any external investigation of what happened, but according to the Libyan accident report the helicopter reached an altitude of about 30 meters, and then attempted to move off to the left, but instead fell like a stone to the ground and exploded.
[8][9] In Magdeburg, a short distance to the north of the city centre, "Paul-Markowski-Platz" ("Paul Markowski Square") was named after him, but has subsequently been renamed "Neustädter Platz".