Peter Glotz

Who was Peter Glotz?

Peter Glotz was a German social democratic politician and social scientist.

Glotz was born in Eger, Sudetenland, to a German father and a Czech mother. His father, an insurance-clerk worked for an "aryanized" Jewish factory in Prague. His family was expelled from Czechoslovakia in September 1945 and settled in Franconia. He studied Journalism, Philosophy, Germanistics, and Sociology at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and the University of Vienna, and became a doctor of philosophy in 1968.

Glotz became director of the Ludwig Maximilians University in 1969 and a member of the Landtag of Bavaria in 1970. 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. He was secretary general of the SPD from 1981 to 1987. Glotz then became founding director of the University of Erfurt and professor for communication sciences.