CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Peter W. Heller

German scientist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ15449511 ↗
Source-derived summary

Peter W. Heller (born 5 September 1957) is a former deputy mayor of the City of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany, economist, investor and venture philanthropist.

Early life

Peter W. Heller was born in Frankfurt am Main, the son of Wolfgang Heller, entrepreneur in the printing industry, and Ingeborg Heller. He studied economics and philosophy at the university of St. Gallen, university of Lausanne (Switzerland) and university of Freiburg (Germany) where he obtained his PhD (Dr. rer.pol.) in 1988 with a thesis on "The Problem of Environmental Degradation in Economic Theory". In 1988, he married Micaela Heller. They have two children, Julia (*1989) and Jakob (*1991), and two grandchildren, Romeo (*2019) and Milo (*2023).

Professional career

1984 Heller was elected to the City Council of Freiburg and served on the council's committees for the municipal budget, environment, and culture. He left the council in 1990 after his election as deputy mayor.

1990 the council of the City of Freiburg im Breisgau elected him as deputy mayor to head the local administration's environmental protection department, the first of its kind in Southern Germany (until 1996).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Peter W. Heller” is german scientist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Peter, Heller and German, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 1988, 1989, 1991—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1957-09-05. For this dossier, Peter, Heller and German is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “german scientist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15449511. VIAF identifies the subject as 277289996. The Library of Congress control number is n91031496. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1988, 1989 and 1991.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Peter W. Heller”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Peter W. Heller primary sources, Peter W. Heller archive and Peter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Peter W. Heller”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Peter W. Heller” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.