A few months after completing his training as a locksmith, he was drafted into the Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht for the duration of World War II.

[1] After the war, Albrecht settled in Saxony, worked as a heating engineer, and joined the SPD (Social Democratic Party) in his hometown of Bennewitz.

After completing his studies in Freiberg, he became the first deputy chairman of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspection of the GDR,[1] succeeding Günter Sieber, who became Minister for Trade and Supply.

[1][3] In August 1968, he succeeded Otto Funke as First Secretary of the Bezirk Suhl SED leadership, a position he held for 21 years until 1989.

[1] In 1972, he was elected to the National Defense Council of the GDR,[1] likely due to the long western border of Bezirk Suhl with West Germany.

In 1988, he unsuccessfully tried to pressure Bad Salzungen SED First Secretary Hans-Dieter Fritschler to rescind his statements in the book Der Erste (English: The first one).

[1] During the Wende, on 2 November 1989, the Bezirk Suhl SED removed him from the position of First Secretary and installed reformer Peter Pechauf as his successor.

The verdict was changed in the appeal by the Federal Court of Justice on 26 July 1994, to manslaughter as an indirect perpetrator and the sentence was increased to five years and one month.