Dieter Zimmermann was born in 1942 in Słupca (Poland). From 1968 to 1973 he studied at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Arts in Halle (Saale) under Willi Sitte and Hannes Wagner. In 1993 he received the Fine Arts Prize of the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg, followed in 2000 by a scholarship for the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris awarded by the ministry in Brandenburg. Zimmermann has lived and worked in Brahmow in the Spreewald (Brandenburg) since 1981.