[1] Günter Heyden was born in Stargard, a small industrial town and railway junction a short distance to the east of Stettin.
In March 1945 he was captured by the Americans and then transferred to the Soviets, spending the nearly five years, till December 1949, as a prisoner of war.
During his final six months of detention, between July and December 1949, he benefitted from a period of political education at a Soviet Antifascist Academy.
He promptly joined the new nation's ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED).
[1] From 1964 till 1966 he was also deputy director of the Party Central Committee's Institute for Opinion Research,[2] also serving during this period as a member of the Politburo's Agitprop Commission.