Career
He was involved in the resistance against the communist regime of the German Democratic Republic (German Democratic Republic), which led to him being expelled from university and eventually banished from the German Democratic Republic. In 2009, he was appointed by the Government of Saxony as the Director of the Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten. In 1981, he was forced to leave East Germany and settled in West Berlin. He became active in the peace movement in West Germany and joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1983.
In 1992, he left the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and in 1998, he joined the Christian Democratic Union along with several other former human rights activists from East Germany.