Josef Bach attended the music school in Preßnitz from 1935 to 1936 and the military music school in Prague from 1937 to 1938. He then studied at the Dresden Conservatory. In 1941 he was drafted into military service, and after being released from captivity in 1947 he became a violinist in the Bayreuth Symphony Orchestra. In 1957 he moved to the spa and symphony orchestra in Baden-Baden and in 1966 to the Badische Staatskapelle in Karlsruhe. He worked there until the end of his life, leading choirs and wind orchestras and also composing popular light music for various instrumentation. In 1979, Josef Bach won a march composition competition organized by the West German Broadcasting Corporation (WDR) with the march Viribus unitis (“With united forces”).
