War ended in May 1945 and he was ordained at Paderborn on 8 August 1948 by Archbishop Lorenz Jaeger, celebrating his First Mass a week later at St. Lambert's, the main church in Ascheberg.

[2] During this time he devoted energy to building up the Norbertinum Training Centre for men coming to a priestly vocation only after obtaining their secular professional qualifications.

Putia in Byzacena was a diocese corresponding to an administrative region in a province created by the Emperor Diocletian in the third century, and now represented by a large desert in the central part of modern-day Tunisia.

The need from Braun's appointments was part of a complex practical set of challenges confronting The Church that had arisen closer to home and much more recently.

[1] The consecration on 18 April 1970 involved three new Auxiliary bishops for the German Democratic Republic: in addition to Johannes Braun, they were Hugo Aufderbeck from Erfurt[4] and Gerhard Schaffran from Görlitz.

[1] 1989 was a year of growing street protests which would turn out to be the trigger for a terminal crisis of confidence and legitimacy for the political establishment in the German Democratic Republic.

On 20 September 1989 it was Johannes Braun who was the only Roman Catholic Bishop to sign a Pastoral letter questioning the monopoly of power enjoyed by the country's ruling Socialist Unity Party.