Henrich was born in Magdeburg, roughly equidistant between Hanover and Berlin, and on the eastern side of the border that divided East Germany from West Germany. After successfully completing his school career he went on to study Law at the Humboldt University in Berlin. At the age of 20 he joined the country's ruling SED (party) and three years later he became an &lt;a href="Informal%20collaborators%20%28East%20Germany%29"&gt;Informal collaborator (IM / "Informeller Mitarbeiter")&lt;/a&gt; for the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Between 1964 and 1969 he is listed as an IM in the Stasi files under the code name "IM Streit".