| He studied physics at Justus-Liebig-Universitat in Giessen and Leopold-Franzens-Universitat Innsbruck and completed his studies
with a Ph.D. at the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1971. 1976 he moved to the department of nuclear chemistry at GSI in
Darmstadt, Germany, which was headed by Peter Armbruster. He played a leading role in the construction of SHIP, the 'Separator
of Heavy Ion Reaction Products'. He was the driving force in the discovery of the cold heavy ion fusion and the discovery
of the elements Bohrium, Meitnerium, Hassium, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium and Eka-Mercury (Ununbium). In 1984 he became head of the new GSI project, the fragment separator, a project which opened new research topics, such
as interactions of relativistic heavy ions with matter, production and separation of exotic nuclear beams and structure of
exotic nuclei. He directed the Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Chemistry department of the GSI and was professor of physics
at the University of Mainz until he retired in March 2005.
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