Udo Mainzer
Udo Mainzer (born 3 July 1945) is a German art historian and monument conservator. He held office until September 2011. as director of the and of the . Career. Born in Witterda, Thuringia, Mainzer studied history, art history and archaeology at the University of Cologne from 1968 and obtained his doctorate there in 1973 under Günther Binding with a dissertation on "Stadttore im Rheinland". Since 1976, he has been a lecturer in art history and monument preservation at the Faculty of Philosophy there and was appointed honorary professor in 1983. After completing his studies, Mainzer worked as deputy  diocesan curator of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Trier and then as district curator in . In 1979 he was appointed to the LVR Office for the Preservation of Monuments in the Rhineland, based first in Bonn and from 1985 at Brauweiler Abbey in Brauweiler. In his last years of service (at least since 2008), he was the longest-serving state conservator in Germany. Honours and honorary posts. In 1998, Mainzer received the Medal of Honour of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and in 2004 the Cross of Merit of the Verdienstorden der Republik Polen. He is a member of  the , chairman of the advisory board of the project "" and in 2002 was a member of the founding circle for the establishment of the .Mainzer is the author and editor of more than 250 articles, books and specialist publication series on heritage conservation, monument protection and architectural history. Since 2011, Mainzer has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the .