[1] His mother fled from Berlin during the closing months of the war in order to escape the bombardment of the city and he became separated from her.
[4] Identified as a war orphan he was adopted by Lorenz and Elisabeth-Charlotte Bertheau: their views in many ways provided the intellectual basis for his own adult life.
[6] In the context of the frequently tense relationship between church and state, this was seen as an inappropriate interpretation of his responsibilities as "Kulturbeauftragter" (loosely: student arts officer).
His appointment as an extraordinary professor for Church History and Christian Archaeology at the university faculty for Protestant Theology (Evangelische Theologie) followed in 1993.
[8] The changes that opened the way for German reunification in 1990 provided new opportunities for Peter Maser to contribute to national life.
He was appointed as the Theology expert in the parliamentary Commission set up to re-evaluate the History and Consequences of the Communist Dictatorship in [East] Germany ("Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in [Ost-]Deutschland").
[6] His qualifications for this last appointment can be seen to have dated back to 1983, which, being the five hundredth anniversary of the great reformer's birth, was designated "Luther Year" in the German Democratic Republic.