Georg Stingl, his father, was a master baker, who died in 1933, as a result of which the latter part of Josef's childhood was spent in relative poverty.
During the Second World War he served in the Luftwaffe (German air force), becoming a spotter, a pilot and, by the time of his capture in 1945, an Oberleutnant (senior lieutenant officer).
Later, between 1955 and 1971, he held a teaching contract in Political Sciences at the "Otto Suhr Institute", which in 1959 had been integrated into the US-backed Free University of Berlin.
In addition, between 1952 and 1968, he held a side-appointment as an advisor on Social Policy to the Berlin-based "West German Chamber of Industry and Commerce ("Industrie- und Handelskammer" / IHK).
Launched in 1945, the CDU was a coming together of political groupings of the centre and moderate right which was intended to reduce the risk of any future power grab by extremists.
Further promotions through the party hierarchy continued, but after 1953 Stingl's political impact was based more directly on his role as a member of the Bundestag (West German parliament).
Stingl was included on the candidate list in the expectation that he would contribute on the party's behalf, primarily, on matters of social policy.
Representing Berlin meant Stingl did not enjoy full voting rights in the West German Bundestag, but he nevertheless made 154 contributions in the parliament's plenary sessions, and he was not without influence, rapidly establishing himself as one of the CDU's leading experts on social policy.
[4] In 1957 Stingl formally became a member of the parliamentary executive of the CDU/CSU group in the Bundestag, having by this time already attended a number of its meetings "by invitation".
He continued to be closely involved in party policy making on these matters, notably in respect of pension reforms, even after 1968.
[4] Between 2 May 1968 and 30 March 1984 Josef Stingl served as president of the Bundesanstalt für Arbeit (West German [National] Employment Agency ).
[2][7] Between 1983 and 1990 Stingl took a post as an honorary (though apparently not entirely inactive) professor at the University of Bamberg where he was assigned to the department of "professional further education" ("Berufliche Weiterbildung").