Born in November 1943 in Haag, Bavaria. Years later, my activities in sports and biology led to my prevailing interest in sensory-motor systems and motor control. During school times at the Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium in Cologne my favored hobbies were reading, team handball and building model planes and sailboats. From 1964 I studied physical education and biology at the Deutsche Sporthochschule and at the University of Cologne. In 1966 I proposed “cybernetic aspects of physical exercise” for my diploma thesis in physical education (supervisor: Prof. W. Hollmann). The literature involved made me aware of how little detail is known about the neural control during natural movements of humans and animals.  Subsequently my biology interests focused more on animal physiology. With a diploma in physical education (1968) and state exam for high-school teaching in biology (1969) worked as part time school teacher at the Montessori-Gymnasium of Cologne (1968-1972). My interest in school teaching decreased due to the annual repetitions of school topics but the insect neurobiology work done in the laboratory of Prof. Franz Huber intrigued me. He proposed to me as possible doctoral thesis the neural control of insect ventilation and in 1970 mainly micro-dissecting the locust abdomen kept me busy. This new world opened my eyes to the presence of many new sensory organs in such a small animal and I wondered how these influence their behavior. Since then insect sensory-motor systems are my favorite research subject, specifically the role of single sensory cells. My doctoral thesis was complete in 1973 and I started two post-doctoral years 1974/75 in Seattle (hosted by J. S. Edwards). That gave me insights into developmental aspects of the insect CNS and into sensory integration by interneurons in the CNS. During my following years 1976 to 1988 at the University of Konstanz in the group of Prof. Ernst Florey I could cooperate with several excellent students and collaborators, partly also at the Zoology Department in Cambridge, UK. We identified many new insect mechanoreceptors, their selective projections in the CNS, and some of their functions in reflexes and behavior. In 1988 I was appointed as professor at the Zoology Institute of the University of Göttingen. Various projects on insect sensory and motor control, also on contact chemoreceptors, on insect ventilation and circulation and on the descending brain control of locusts by their visual system. That kept me and my small group busy. More recently a long standing interest in the CNS structure of minute insects led me study the CNS of miniature wasps.

Now I am retired since 2009 but still doing research in my old lab room on unfinished topics and on several new ones - and I still play team handball in local league in 2013.