He had, by this time, already spent the war years accommodated in a succession of "emigrants' camps" in Switzerland, where he had arrived from Milan with his mother and sister in 1938 in order to escape the effects of newly introduced antisemitic legislation in Italy.
After leaving school in 1934 he spent six months as a volunteer in an automobile repair shop before embarking on an engineering apprenticeship with Ertelwerk, a manufacturer of Precision mechanical products, in their factory in the western part of central Munich.
The Steinbergers are described in sources as a family of secular or assimilated Jews: Bernhard's Jewish provenance made it unlikely that he would be offered a fulfilling job in the aviation industry, especially given the sector's important role in the government's re-armament plans.
In October 1937 he finally obtained a design job with a manufacturer of road-construction machinery and tractors: the work was sufficiently well paid to enable him to support his mother and sister.
Leonhard Ragaz, a leading theologian who headed up the organisation producing the journal, was an energetic man and a committed pacifist who also campaigned very publicly in support of the interests of recently arrived migrants.
In March 1940 the Swiss parliament decided to revoke the blanket ban on paid employment being undertaken by "tolerated migrants" (refugees), but at the same time plans were set in train for the construction of labour camps to be administered by the police.
Ibolya Steinberger was placed under enormous pressure, and after being asked in a threatening manner whether she actually wanted ever to see her husband and child again, she was persuaded to sign another false confession, this time fully conscious of the importance of ensuring that she was incriminating no one except herself.
The USC in Switzerland had provided three more modest cash grants to Steinberger in order to finance (1) a trip to Bern in 1943, (2) attendance on a postwar course for academics and (3) to fund his return to Germany in 1945.
Steinberger's work focused on the theme of "Planning and Labour productivity", which covered a politically explosive and economically crucial set of challenges with which, some felt, the German Democratic Republic never entirely came to terms.
[2] On 29 November 1956, slightly more than a year after he got back from the Soviet labour camps, Bernhard Steinberger was identified by the security services as a member of what the East German media later took to demonizing as the Harich Group, and arrested.
Surviving Stasi records include two reports on Steinberger submitted to the department's West Germany intelligence directorate (HVA) on 28 November by an informant identified as "GI Walter".
Evidence held by the authorities also included a telephone intercept of a call that Steinberger had made to his wife from Harich's apartment on 22 November 1956, asking her to take part in a meeting.
He was also required to provide separately a "Rechenschaftslegung über meine geistige Entwicklung bis heute", giving details of his spiritual and religious development (dated 9 January 1957).
But the statement of "repentance" that emerged in the case of Bernhard Steinberger was neither effusive nor unqualified: It will be observed that the simple removal of the word "not" in two places would completely reverse the meaning of the second of the two sentences included here.
His criticism of the bureaucratic and administrative focus of the East German planning system, as well as his advocacy for the concept of self-administering businesses, together with the central position in his thinking of the Law of value, reflect a set of economic guidelines and priorities that in most respects follow ideas of his old mentor and tutor Prof. Fritz Behrens.
His written permission came in a hand-written one-word comment, "Einverstanden" ("Agreed") dated 4 July 1957, from the man in charge at the Ministry of State Security (Stasi), Erich Mielke, himself.
His allocated supervisor, Dr. Herbert Neumann from the Economics Department carefully guided him towards a firmly theoretical topic that would require no contact with real-world East German state enterprises.
However, a few days later, on 14 January, he informed the relevant commanding officer that he was not prepared to betray his socialist convictions and play the role of a "tuppenny-ha'penny youth" (eines "Achtgroschenjungen").
[2] Bernhard Steinberger was released on 26 November 1960, two days ahead of the scheduled end of his sentence thanks to a "Gnadenerweis" (loosely, "mercy certificate") issued by the State Council (Staatsrat).
Steinberger's signed commitments came after four lengthy conversation in which Lieutenant Enderlein of HA V/2/II (military counterintelligence) informed the newly re-recruited "GI" (secret informant) of a concern on the part of the authorities that, following Steinberger's release, he was more than likely to be contacted by representatives of the Hamburg-based opposition group "Der dritte Weg" ("The Third Way"), who would want to recruit him or persuade him to emigrate to the west without permission (which would be illegal).
In 1961 his report to his handler consisted of a robust defense of a leading official at the Economics College in Berlin-Karlshorst who had suffered unjustified attacks from colleagues with influence in the party hierarchy.
[2] After his release from detention at the end of 1960 Steinberger worked, for approximately six months, at VEB Elektro-Mechanik in Berlin as a "Technisch begründete Arbeitsnorm (TAN) Berarbeiter", responsible for ensuring product conformity to prescribed standards.
However, the path to a conventional academic career remained blocked by a clause in the court judgment he had received on 9 March 1957, which had stipulated that Steinberger "should not be active in the public service nor in any leading function in economics or the arts".
Back in March 1958 his wife had already, through her lawyer, received notification from the Leipzig city authorities that furniture which the family had acquired by means of a loan agreement had been withdrawn at some point following the couple's arrest in 1949.
[2] On 18 April 1963 Bernhard Steinberger finally received a communication from the secretary of state that the authorities were "in agreement with his commitment to teaching" ("Einsatz in der Lehrtätigkeit einverstanden").
The threat to his future academic career from the stipulation in his sentence back on 9 March 1957 that he "should not be active in the public service nor in any leading function in economics or the arts" appeared to have been lifted.
On 24 April 1963, after discussions with future colleagues at the college[6] Steinberger reluctantly but definitively withdrew his claims for restitution: "I will not disguise the fact that my decision to draw a line under the events of 1949-1955 is a difficult one.
After 1985 Winds of change blowing across from, of all places, the Moscow Kremlin left East Germany's increasingly geriatric political leaders feeling isolated and uncertain about the future (although their commitement to "traditional" socialism appeared solid).
When street protesters breached the Berlin Wall in November 1989 it quickly became clear that Soviet troops standing by had received no orders to intervene on behalf of the status quo.
He summarized again his reform ideas from 1956, which had simply revolved around the increasingly mainstream goals for a de-Stalnized socialist party and the establishment of a democratic East German state.