Search for GDR Money Ends

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said the commission had provided an "outstanding contribution to democracy in unified Germany."

"The revolution in East Germany did not lead to a clean slate," he said at a ceremony marking the body's dissolution on Friday. "It did not, as other revolutions have done in the past, sweep everything away with it."

The commission was called into life by East Germany's last prime minister, Lothar de Maiziere, to track down the "curious transfers" of money at the end of May 1990.

It examined what happened to assets owned by the governing communist Socialist Unity Party (SED) and other party organizations.

"The German revolution was from this viewpoint not a real revolution, it remained -- thankfully -- incomplete," Schäuble added. "One of the consequences of this was, however, that the orderly processing of the past took time and effort."

Most money found in Communist hands

The money uncovered by the commission, nearly 73 percent of which was found to be in the hands of the SED and its successor, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), was used to fund organizations researching East Germany's government, maintaining memorial sites and paying off loans incurred by the eastern German states.

As the legal successor to the East German communists, the PDS, which was accused of attempting to hinder the commission's work, was briefly the wealthiest political party in Europe, due to its SED inheritance.

Members of the commission said funds may still exist in Hungary as well as in Swiss bank accounts, but that international laws provided few options to reclaim any such money. In March, the commission recommended it be dissolved to legislators in January 2007.