Leich grew up living with his aunt and his grandmother in Weimar, until his father married again and integrated him into the new family in Schalkau.

He met his future wife, Trautel Sickert, during a ball at a dancing school[3] In 1947 he began studying theology at the University of Marburg with Rudolf Bultmann.

[4] From 1978 to 1992, he was bishop of the Lutheran Church in Thuringia, holding the position longer than anyone during the era of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

[7] For much of his career, Leich defended worshipping God in an anti-religious communist environment, saying of this, "a lot of times we did hide being Christians"[citation needed].

[2] The Lutheran Church had offered an avenue for critics of the regime and people who wanted to leave the country to make their demands public, but its Berlin office was closed due to over-crowding.

Mein Leben in vier politischen Systemen (Changing Horizons: My Life in Four Political Systems).