Some time after Hitler's rise to power Ulbricht fled to France and later to the Soviet Union. As leader of the communist Ulbricht Group he returned to Berlin on April 30, 1945. He was the first secretary of the Socialist Unity Party (SED), and leading East Germany from 1950 to 1971. From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973.