Josef Wenig

However, by the time he was old enough to attend school the family had relocated to Germany, and he grew up in another rural location, Zeulenroda, a small country town to the west of Chemnitz.

During the next three years, without at this stage entering into any formal training scheme, he took jobs in various sectors including transport and brick making.

[1] After the war Wenig returned to Zeulenroda, liberated from the Nazi regime a few months earlier by the United States Army, but now administered as part of the Soviet occupation zone.

[1] In 1948 Sepp Wenig responded to advertisements offering employment at the Wismut which was being set up to operate uranium mines in the south-east of the Soviet zone.

He gained rapid promotion, although at this stage top management positions in what was recognised as a strategically critical sector were reserved for Soviet personnel.

[2][3] It was a feature of the Soviet occupation zone, relaunched in October 1949 as the German Democratic Republic, that the ruling party was closely integrated into workplace structures, and from 1949 Sepp Wenig was a member of the SED sector leadership team (SED-Gebietsleitung) at Wismut.

[1] Meanwhile, the ban on German nationals in top management positions at Wismut had been relaxed and in 1955 he moved to Karl-Marx-Stadt (as Chemnitz was then known) and became the company's General Director, with direct responsibility for the "Labour department".