Werner Pfennig grew up in both parts of divided Berlin. He studied political science and modern history at Freie Universität Berlin (FU) and got his Ph. D. in political science. From 1978 to 1980 he was a German Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University and from 1989 to 1992 resident director of a German foundation in the Philippines, with a teaching assignment at the University of the Philippines. For many years he was acting director of a Center for East and Southeast Asian Politics at the Department of Political of FU Berlin. After his retirement he continues to work with a comparative approach to problems of normalization between divided nations, concentrating on Germany, China, Taiwan, Korea, and Cyprus.