In the German Democratic Republic, he served as the longtime head of the Office for Prices at the Council of Ministers of the GDR and was a member of the Central Committee of the SED.

Born into a family of agricultural workers on 17 November 1927, in Hoym, Halbritter attended primary school from 1934 to 1942 and underwent administrative training from 1942 to 1944.

[1] Upon his return, he worked as a farm laborer and joined the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) in 1946, and the Free German Youth (FDJ) in 1948.

Starting from 1954, he worked as a staff member in the Central Committee of the SED, eventually serving as deputy head of its Planning, Finance, and Technical Development Department from 1960 to 1961.

The problem here was the fact that the Price Office, as an intermediate steering body, decoupled the connection between the producers' production costs and the purchasing power of consumers.

During the Wende, from December 1989 to February 1990, he served as Representative of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers for the Central Round Table and for the dissolution of the Office for National Security in the Modrow government, with the rank of state secretary.