| 1943-1945 | Air Force auxiliary, Reich labour service, military service, briefly American and British prisoner of war |
| 1946 | secondary school certificate |
| 1946-1949 | studied law and economics at Halle and Leipzig Universities |
| 1946-1952 | Member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany (LDPD), division of Saxony-Anhalt |
| 1949 | first state examination in law in Leipzig |
| 1952 | leaves the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany |
| 1952 | Member of the Free Democratic Party (F.D.P.) |
| 1954 | second state examination in law in Hamburg
solicitor in Bremen |
| 1956 | Research Assistant of the F.D.P. parliamentary party |
| 1959-1965 | Director of the F.D.P. parliamentary party, at the same time (1962-1964) National Director of the F.D.P. |
| 1965-1998 | Member of the German Bundestag |
| 1965-1969 | Whip of the F.D.P. parliamentary party |
| 1968-1974 | Deputy Chairman of the F.D.P |
| 1969-1974 | Federal Minister of the Interior |
| 1974-1985 | Chairman of the F.D.P., member of the federal representative council |
| 1974-1992 | Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Federal Chancellor |
| 18.05.1992 | resignation as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Deputy Federal Chancellor at his own request |
| May 1992 | Honorary Chairman of the F.D.P. |
| 1999 | took up again solicitor´s activities with Büsing, Müffelmann & Theye, Berlin office |
| 2000 | Managing Partner, Hans-Dietrich Genscher Consult GmbH |
