[2] More briefly, between 1950 and 1952, he was a member of the Free German Youth (FDJ / Freie Deutsche Jugend) organisation, which was in effect the youth wing of the young country's recently formed ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED / Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands).

[5] Nearly four decades later Schwierzina's participation in the wedding of one of Germany's most high-profile spy-couples would be highlighted in the western press.

[5] By 1990 Schwierzina was nevertheless able to point out that he had no contact with the Guillaumes for a very long time[6] adding that back then you did not normally recite your "résumé" [to friends].

[5][7] From 1952 Schwierzina was employed as a commercial lawyer, working for various East German enterprises on matters involving foreign trade, notably for the food and drinks sector, and including the VEB Bärensiegel operation.

[3] In 1963 he was awarded a six-month suspended prison sentence for assisting people to escape from the country („Beihilfe zur Republikflucht"): this was a serious matter in a country that had emerged from the war with a desperate shortage of working age men, which had only been exacerbated by large-scale emigration to the west, especially prior to the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961.

Back in East Germany the monolithic government structure began to lose authority and self-belief towards the end of the 1980s as its economic underpinnings became ever more suspect and the government-to-government relationship with the Soviet Union became less predictable.

[2] He was succeeded, albeit briefly, by his deputy, Thomas Krüger who from 11 January 1991 till 24 January 1991 served as "acting mayor" of East Berlin until the role was superseded and Eberhard Diepgen took office as the mayor of "all Berlin", appointed following the December 1990 city elections.

[10] Between January 1991 and October 1995 Schwierzina sat as a member of the Berlin regional legislature where he was elected an assembly vice-president and also as Chairman of the Petitions Committee.