diff --git a/libsrc/core/ng_mpi_wrapper.cpp b/libsrc/core/ng_mpi_wrapper.cpp
index 328e5ac7..208fb69d 100644
--- a/libsrc/core/ng_mpi_wrapper.cpp
+++ b/libsrc/core/ng_mpi_wrapper.cpp
@@ -33,7 +33,6 @@ void InitMPI(std::optional<std::filesystem::path> mpi_lib_path) {
   cout << IM(3) << "InitMPI" << endl;
 
   std::string vendor = "";
-  std::string ng_lib_name = "";
   std::string mpi4py_lib_file = "";
 
   if (mpi_lib_path) {
@@ -97,6 +96,7 @@ void InitMPI(std::optional<std::filesystem::path> mpi_lib_path) {
 #endif  // WIN32
   }
 
+  std::string ng_lib_name = "";
   if (vendor == "Open MPI")
     ng_lib_name = "ng_openmpi";
   else if (vendor == "MPICH")
@@ -106,6 +106,8 @@ void InitMPI(std::optional<std::filesystem::path> mpi_lib_path) {
   else
     throw std::runtime_error("Unknown MPI vendor: " + vendor);
 
+  ng_lib_name += NETGEN_SHARED_LIBRARY_SUFFIX;
+
   // Load the ng_mpi wrapper and call ng_init_mpi to set all function pointers
   typedef void (*ng_init_handle)();
   ng_mpi_lib = std::make_unique<SharedLibrary>(ng_lib_name);
@@ -119,7 +121,26 @@ static std::runtime_error no_mpi() {
 
 #if defined(NG_PYTHON) && defined(NG_MPI4PY)
 decltype(NG_MPI_CommFromMPI4Py) NG_MPI_CommFromMPI4Py =
-    [](py::handle, NG_MPI_Comm &) -> bool { throw no_mpi(); };
+    [](py::handle py_obj, NG_MPI_Comm &ng_comm) -> bool {
+  // If this gets called, it means that we want to convert an mpi4py
+  // communicator to a Netgen MPI communicator, but the Netgen MPI wrapper
+  // runtime was not yet initialized.
+
+  // store the current address of this function
+  auto old_converter_address = NG_MPI_CommFromMPI4Py;
+
+  // initialize the MPI wrapper runtime, this sets all the function pointers
+  InitMPI();
+
+  // if the initialization was successful, the function pointer should have
+  // changed
+  // -> call the actual conversion function
+  if (NG_MPI_CommFromMPI4Py != old_converter_address)
+    return NG_MPI_CommFromMPI4Py(py_obj, ng_comm);
+
+  // otherwise, something strange happened
+  throw no_mpi();
+};
 decltype(NG_MPI_CommToMPI4Py) NG_MPI_CommToMPI4Py =
     [](NG_MPI_Comm) -> py::handle { throw no_mpi(); };
 #endif