[1] He has qualifications in banking and teaching, has worked for Bremen social services and founded a commercial construction company,[2] and is a property manager and estate agent.

[1][3] Originally a German Communist Party member, he joined the AfD in 2013, the year it was founded,[3] largely over anti-Muslim and anti-euro sentiments.

In May 2015 he was elected to the council for the borough of Burglesum [de],[4] and in the 2017 German federal election he won a levelling seat in the German parliament, the Bundestag,[5] where he is a member of the committees for construction, housing, urban development and community and for traffic and digital infrastructure and a deputy member of the committee for environment, protection of nature and nuclear security.

[6] Surveillance video showed three people, one of whom struck him a blow to the base of the skull with an elbow.

He resigned in September 2019 after party internal disputes over his double mandate in Bremen and in the federal government Bundestag.