Dietrich Schönwitz, born 14 July 1947, studied after a bank apprenticeship business administration and economics at Cologne University, Germany, and worked as research fellow for the Chair of Economics and Economic Policy at Augsburg University, Germany. He got a doctor's degree in economics in 1978 and joined afterwards the German Monopolies Commission in Cologne. In this time his priority research interests were overall concentration and competition policy. He came to the University of Applied Sciences of the German Central Bank in 1980 for courses in macro- and micro-economics, economic policy and monetary policy. In 1990 he was appointed Rector of the University of the German Central Bank.