In September 1945 Steinberger was repatriated to Munich, which by this time was part of the US occupation zone. The Bavaria Communist Party ("KP Bayern") very soon sent him to take charge of "Economic Office B" ("Wirtschaftsamt B") in the Wasserburg district, in the countryside between Munich and Salzburg. Later, in May 1946, he was appointed Bavaria Communist Party district secretary for Wasserburg. He also took charge of the "Economy and Communities" department in the regional leadership of the Bavaria Communist Party. The next year the regional leadership sent him across to the Social Sciences faculty ("Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät" / "GwewiFak") at the University of Leipzig in order to undertake a Study course in Economics. The intention was that on completion of his studies he should become the Economics expert on the national executive of the national Communist Party. It was, even at the time, a little unusual for a leading party officer in the US occupation zone to cross the frontier into the Soviet occupation zone in order to study Economics, but for the Communist Party leadership the political context at Leipzig was presumably an attraction. (It would take several more years before the frontier on the ground dividing East Germany from West Germany would become impermeable.)