In March 1974 Harry Ott switched to the diplomatic service when, in succession to Horst Bittner, he was appointed ambassador to the Soviet Union, possibly East Germany's most important diplomatic posting. Ott left his Moscow posting in January 1981. In the meantime he had been elected to an equally important job back home, elected in May 1976 as one of the 145 members of the East German Party Central Committee. He remained a member till the Central Committee resigned at the end of 1989 as part of the sequence of events leading to German reunification the next year.
