Peace movement
He graduated as a teacher but discovered politics very early. The right to conscientious objection was his first political issue, developing into a general involvement in the German and international Peace movement and campaigning against the stationing of nuclear weapons in Europe and nuclear arms in general. From 1986 to 1997 he worked as a political adviser to the Executive Board of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany. He founded the IFIAS Brussels in 1997.