His childhood was deeply marked by the Second World War and the post-war years of scarcity. As a teenager, he traveled extensively, first cycling in Germany, then hitchhiking from England to Greece, where he visited Mount Athos, via Italy and Yugoslavia. After studying theology, mainly in Heidelberg, he worked as a trainee pastor in Hamburg before joining the Taizé Community in 1962. He made a lifelong commitment at Easter 1966.
In 1965, Brother Rudolf began his ministry of visits beyond the Iron Curtain, first in Hungary, then in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania, weaving a whole network of friendships with Christians from various churches. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was instrumental in welcoming young people to Taizé and organizing the first European meetings. In 1983, he left for Africa, where for a few months he lived with the brothers in the Mathare Valley shantytown in Nairobi. In 1985, he joined the Taizé fraternity in Seoul, South Korea, while visiting the brothers in Japan.
In 1987, he left to join the brothers living in Alagoinhas in the northeast of Brazil, in the state of Bahia. There he shared the life of the underprivileged for over thirty years, before returning to Taizé in 2020 for health reasons. In Brazil, he devoted all his energy to the children of the working-class neighborhood where the brothers live. He organized the “Brincadeira”, where, with the help of volunteers from Brazil and elsewhere, he welcomed them to a place of trust, play and education. He visited their often broken families. He witnessed the violence, sometimes lethal, to which many of them are subjected.
Back in Taizé, he kept in touch with his friends using modern means of communication. He continued to reflect on the future of the Church. A few months before his death, he published a booklet with the evocative title “The Faith of the Poor”, based on his experience of life among the poor.