Josef Greindl studied singing at the Munich Academy of Music from 1932 to 1936 with Paul Bender and Anna Bahr-Mildenburg and made his operatic stage debut in 1936 at Krefeld, as Hunding / Die Walküre. He was a member of the Krefeld ensemble until 1938 when he moved to Düsseldorf, where he sang in the first performance of Ottmar Gerster’s Die Hexe von Passau in 1941.

In 1939 Greindl joined the Nazi Party and at the invitation of Heinz Tietjen became a member of the Berlin State Opera in 1942, having sung there in another first performance during 1941, of Othmar Schoeck’s Das Schloss Dürande. He moved across to the Berlin Städtische Oper (later the Deutsche Oper) in 1948, the year in which he sang in their first performance of ...