Career
His work is focused on the German Democratic Republic and its Ministry for State Security (The Stasi). Kowalczuk trained initially as a mason, and then worked as a janitor. In 1990 he began his study of history at the Humboldt University of Berlin, receiving his doctorate from nearby Potsdam University in 2002.
Between 1995 and 1998 he served as an "honorary expert member" on the Commission set up by the German Bundestag to try and resolve some of the open questions left over from the single-party dictatorship that had, till 1990, been the German Democratic Republic.
