It has never been entirely clear whether those behind the party merger intended that it should take effect across the whole of Germany: in reality its impact was restricted to the regions administered as the Soviet occupation zone.

[1] At the same time, from 1945 till 1947, he was able to study with the "Workers' and Peasants' Faculty" attached to Halle University in order to complete his hitherto truncated schooling.

Werner Jarowinsky passed his School Final Examinations (Abitur) in 1947, which opened the way to university-level education.

[b][6] In 1956 Jarowinsky was appointed to head up the "Research Institute for Inter-German Trade" ("Forschungsinstituts für den Binnenhandel"), which was part of the Economics faculty at Berlin University.

[5][7] In 1957 he became Head of National Administration ("Leiter der Hauptverwaltung") at the East German Ministry for Trade and Supplies ("Ministerium für Handel und Versorgung"), which had connections to the university institute.

[5] Further promotion followed in 1959 when he became "Deputy Minister" or "Secretary of State" (sources differ over the job title)[5][7] In succession to Franz Fillinger.

[3] It was quite usual for Central Committee members to join only after their names had been on the list of candidates for membership during a period of several years.

[1] However, at that same Sixth Party Conference his name was placed on the (much shorter) list of candidates for future promotion to Politburo membership.

[3] Care had been taken to ensure a semblance of multi-party plurality in the People's parliament, but Jarowinsky is listed throughout as a member representing the ruling SED (party) itself.

[1] During the later 1980s, Werner Jarowinsky also became the East German representative on the editorial team producing "Problems of Peace and Socialism", an international academic journal containing jointly-produced content from Communist and workers' parties and published in Prague, albeit with an editor-in-chief from the Soviet Union.

His contributions indicate that, in common with the aging membership of the East German politburo more generally, Jarowinsky was not enthusiastic about winds of change arriving in the editorial offices after 1986 from, of all places, Moscow.

To the surprise of commentators (and others) it quickly became apparent that the East German borderguards observing events had received no instructions to intervene.

To Chancellor Kohl of West Germany, who had already had opportunities to discuss the situation with President Gorbachev in some detail, it may already have been apparent that the way was opening up to reunification.