Braun went to school in Kassel until he joined the volunteer brigade of the horseback rangers of the Electorate of Hesse in 1814 in order to fight against the troops of Napoleon.

He joined the Guard of Simón Bolívar in 1821 and accompanied him on his Campaign of South to liberate today's Ecuador and Peru as one of his many officers.

On August 6, 1824, Braun was the first patriotic soldier to set foot on the plain of Junín, where a superior cavalry force of the royalistic-Spanish army of José de Canterac was waiting.

Due to Braun's unusual conduct and over the years highly trained and well disciplined units, the patriotic cavalry not only resisted the superiority but was able to defeat their opponent.

This changed fundamentally when Braun withstood other attempts and bravely attacked the Peruvian invasion of Bolivia of 1828 under general Agustín Gamarra.

A few months later Braun was able to travel to Arequipa, Peru, where finally met his wife Justa Germana de Rivero y Abrill, who he had married through written authority in 1828.

Years later in 1850 he was rehabilitated by President Manuel Isidoro Belzu, after which he returned several times to Bolivia and Peru where he had commercial ventures in copper mines and coffee plantations.