Winfried Junge was born July 19, 1935, in Berlin. After finishing schol in 1953, he started to study German philology at the college of education at Berlin's Humboldt university. In 1954, he was one of the first students to enroll at the new Deutsche Hochschule für Filmkunst in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Furthermore, he published film reviews from 1951 to 1955. After receiving his diploma, he started to work for the DEFA studio of popular science films, at first as a dramaturgy assistant, then three years as the assistant director to Karl Gass.