Born in Marburg, Diesselhorst, a grandson of the Protestant theologian Rudolf Bultmann and son of Gesine Bultmann and her husband, the Göttingen legal philosopher Malte Diesselhorst, grew up in Göttingen in a music-loving family.
He studied cello playing first with Alexander Molzahn in Frankfurt and then with Wolfgang Boettcher in Berlin.
After receiving several awards, he passed the audition for the Berlin Philharmonic in 1977, in which he had previously worked on a temporary basis.
[1] The ensemble received the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik for its Britten and Regerrecordings ".
He died of cardiac arrest at the age of 54 after a six-hour heart valve operation.