Peter Glotz was born in Cheb, Czechoslovakia, to a German father and a Czech mother.

His father, an insurance clerk joined the Nazi Party and administered a small "Aryanized" Jewish factory in Prague.

He was a member of the German parliament from 1972 to 1977 and a parliamentary state secretary of the Federal Minister for Education and Research from 1974 until 1977.

From 1977 to 1981 Glotz was a senator for science and research in the state of Berlin, and became a member of the parliament again in 1983, resigning in 1996.

From January 2000 until he died in Zürich, Glotz was a Professor of media and society at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland.