Klemens von Metternich
Klemens Metternich was born into the House of Metternich on 15 May 1773 to Franz George Karl Count Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, a diplomat who had passed from the service of the Archbishopric of Trier to that of the Imperial court, and his wife Countess Maria Beatrice Aloisia von Kageneck. He was named in honour of Prince Clemens Wenceslaus of Saxony, the archbishop-elector of Trier and the past employer of his father. He was the eldest son and had one older sister. At the time of his birth the family possessed a ruined keep at Beilstein, a castle at Winneberg, an estate west of Koblenz, and another in Königswart, Bohemia, won during the 17th century. At this time Metternich's father, described as "a boring babbler and chronic liar" by a contemporary, was the Austrian ambassador to the courts of the three Rhenish electors (Trier, Cologne and Mainz). Metternich's education was handled by his mother, heavily influenced by their proximity to France; Metternich spoke French better than German. As a child he went on official visits with his father and, under the direction of Protestant tutor John Frederick Simon, was tutored in academic subjects, swimming, and horsemanship.
Clemens Laby
Clemens Laby was born in Beuthen (today known as Bytom), a mining town near Kattowitz (today Katowice) in Upper Silesia. Towards the end of his time at senior school, around 1920, he worked as an intern at the "Oheimgrube" (today Wujek) coal mine. He then moved on to the Technical University (TU) of Berlin where he studied mine engineering, obtaining his degree in or before 1926. It is from the record of his registration at the TU that his birth date and birthplace can be ascertained. The outcome of the 1922 referendum had moved the Polish frontier close to Beuthen, and in 1926 Laby went to work for the Polish mining administration. After the Annexation of Western Poland by the German army Laby was transferred to Germany's national head office of the Combustible Fuels Industry, taking a senior management position in the Bituminous coal department based in Berlin. It was here that he met the jurist Karl Laurenz in 1945, while Laby was working as a safety expert with the "Mining Technical Inspectorate". Between 1946 and 1949 Laby was also working as personal assistant to the President of the National Administration (for what had become, in May 1945, the Soviet occupation zone). The National Administration was the forerunner to the in what became, in October 1949, the German Democratic Republic. According to testimony given by Laurenz at his trial in 1955, Laby had had to leave the National Administration in 1949 because he had had to relocate from East to West Berlin - something he had done only reluctantly.