Peter Maser was born on 3 August 1943 and is a German protestant church historian.
18 Facts About Peter Maser
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Peter Maser was born in Berlin at the height of the Second World War.
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Peter Maser grew up at Bad Kosen in the Soviet occupation zone, relaunched in October 1949 as the Soviet sponsored German Democratic Republic.
4.
Peter Maser's mother fled from Berlin during the closing months of the war in order to escape the bombardment of the city and he became separated from her.
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Peter Maser was driven by opposition to the idea of totalitarian government, and under the East German one-party regime was twice imprisoned.
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Peter Maser attended the local secondary school till 1957 and was then sent to the Landesschule Pforta, a former monastery in the hills between Erfurt and Leipzig, and in recent centuries chiefly notable as a prestigious German public boarding school for academically gifted children.
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Peter Maser had organised a school visit to attend the Christmas Oratorio in nearby Naumburg Cathedral.
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Peter Maser then attended a church "pre-seminary" in Naumburg until he was able to progress to university in 1962.
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Between 1962 and 1968 Maser studied at the University of Halle, emerging with a degree in protestant theology.
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Peter Maser stayed on, now working as a research assistant under Konrad Onasch, who supervised him for his doctorate which he received in 1971 or 1972.
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Peter Maser lost his place at Halle in 1976 after he applied for an Ausreiseantrag.
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Peter Maser was by now married to Malwine - like him, trained in theology - and the couple had two children, Jakob and Rebekka.
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Peter Maser took a teaching post in Christian Archaeology and the History of Christian Art at the University of Munster.
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Peter Maser remained at Munster till his retirement in 2008.
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The changes that opened the way for German reunification in 1990 provided new opportunities for Peter Maser to contribute to national life.
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Peter Maser was appointed as the Theology expert in the parliamentary Commission set up to re-evaluate the History and Consequences of the Communist Dictatorship in [East] Germany.
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Peter Maser then served, between 1995 and 1998, as an expert member of the follow-up parliamentary Commission mandated to "overcome the impact of the Communist Dictatorship on the implementation of German unity".
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In June 1998 Peter Maser was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 1st Class.