Christoph Butterwegge graduated from the Max Ludwig Planck grammar school in Dortmund in 1970 and studied social science, philosophy, law, and psychology and Ruhr-University Bochum.

[1] Butterwegge took lectures for sociology and social and political science in various universities and technical colleges in Duisburg, Fulda, Magdeburg, and Münster.

Prominent former students of Butterwegge include Kemal Bozay, Thomas Gesterkamp, Gudrun, Hentges, Michael Klundt, and Samuel Salzborn.

Since May 2013, Butterwegge has written guest columns for FOCUS Online[3] in addition to articles for ZEIT, Die Tageszeitung ("taz"), Frankfurter Rundschau, Freitag, the Mittelbayerische Zeitung, The Young World, and the Federal Center for Political Education.

He attempted to make use of the Zeitunsansatz in Bremen for political education, and linked it with concepts of "research learning" in the sense of a "search for a trace" as well as a local and regional historiography "from below", which was then related to oral history.

In this position, Butterwegge was a vocal opponent of newly elected Chancellor and fellow party member Helmut Schmidt and accused him of undermining the interests of workers.

[9] In 2005, due to his disillusionment with the SPD's choice to serve as junior members in a grand coalition government headed by Angela Merkel of the CDU, he left the party and justified his decision to leave the day.

In a press conference in Cologne, he argued that the best interests of left-wing SPD supporters were served by voting for Party of Democratic Socialism or WASG.

Butterwegge was a staunch critic of the so-called Riester-Rente, a grant-aided privately funded pension scheme named after then-Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Walter Riester, as well as the provisions of the Agenda 2010 welfare reforms.

[14] Butterwegge derided said policies as neoliberal and argued that they would result in poorer conditions for the weakest in society: the poor, the elderly, the long-term unemployed, the mentally ill, and people with disabilities.