[3] Winfried Baumgart was born in Streckenbach, a hamlet then administered as part of Jauer in the Lower Silesian countryside to the west of Breslau.
When he was 6 his family were caught up in the ethnic cleansing that was a feature of the times, and he fled with his two brothers to the Oldenburg region in the northwest of the British zone.
[1] At the same time he worked for and obtained a qualification as a simultaneous translator (English, French, Russian, German).
[4] However, after he was offered a job as a research assistant at the university, he decided to set aside his earlier ambitions, and instead pursue an academic career.
Studies of the relationship between waging war, politics, and the peace movement" ("Der Friede von Paris 1856.