[1] Bernd Meier was born, the youngest of six siblings, during the closing months of the Second World War at Cainsdorf (then just outside Zwickau).
He attended school locally between 1952 and 1962, joining the Free German Youth ("Freie Deutsche Jugend" / FDJ) - effectively the youth wing of East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party in 1960, and on leaving school undertaking an apprenticeship as a machinist at the Crossen-Mulde paper mill.
[1] In addition, from June 1981 he became a delegate and chairmen of the Permanent Commission of Youth Questions, physical well-being ("Körperkultur") and Sport, attached to the Frankfurt (Oder) district council.
It was a mark of how far the changes of 1989 had progressed that his own election was conducted in a conscientious and far from traditional manner as party officials at all level felt their way towards a more democratic way of doing things.
He served as "business manager" (als " Parlamentarischer Geschäftsführer") for the (massively reduced) PDS group in the assembly.
Bernd Meier was not among the PDS Volkskammer members who transferred to the Bundestag, and he lived his final fifteen years away from the public sphere.