The Second World War started when she was 2 and ended when she was not quite 8, after which her childhood was spent growing up in the Soviet occupation zone in what remained of Germany.
In 1958 she took a job as a Planner with MTS Brüsewitz, a state-administered agricultural machinery depot serving the district.
[1] From 1958 till 1962 she served as FDJ secretary and as divisional leader with the Schwerin rural district council.
Meanwhile, she undertook a correspondence course with the "Karl Marx" Party Academy which led her to a degree in Social Sciences.
[1] In 1993 Hannelore Mensch was convicted of local government election fraud by the Berlin district Court and sentenced to one year of supervised liberty ("probation").