He was one of Germany's most active Esperanto philologists and was from 1991 to 2016 both the chair of the Gesellschaft für Interlinguistik ("Interlinguistics Society") and the editor of its newsletter, Interlinguistische Informationen.

He earned a doctorate from Humboldt University of Berlin in 1976 with his dissertation on comparative word construction of Esperanto and German.

(In the former East Germany such a second degree was known as "dissertation B", corresponding to the highest academic qualification of "habilitation" awarded to full professors in many European countries.)

Having first taught himself Esperanto in 1957, he later became secretary (1968 through 1990) of the Centra Laborrondo de Esperanto-Amikoj ("Central Working Circle of Friends of Esperanto"), a government-sanctioned affiliate of East Germany's Cultural Association (Deutsche Kulturbund).

After 1981 the group became a part of the newly founded German Democratic Republic Esperanto Association (Esperanto-Asocio de GDR, GDREA).