 He worked at the universities of Hamburg and Lüneburg, where he taught sociology.During his life in Germany, Pučnik became a supporter of the German Social Democratic Party, maintaining close relations with several of its leaders.In the late 1980s, he became an open admirer of the Social Democratic leader of Lower Saxony Gerhard Schröder, later chancellor of Germany, whom he took as his main role model for his subsequent political activity.