Rudolf Bahro was born on 18 November 1935 in Bad Flinsberg (nowadays named Zwieradów Zdrój, Poland), a famous Lower-Silesian place of recreation, at that time. His father Max Bahro worked as an animal farming consultant, his mother Irmgard came from a place near Bad Flinsberg.

At the end of World War II, the mother with her children were evacuated. Due to the chaotic circumstances of the evacuation, Rudolf, at that time a nearly ten-years old boy, was separated from his mother, sister and brother. From February 1945, he lived at several places in Bohemia, in Vienna and Carinthia. Finally, he got to the Western end of Germany, a place called Biedenkopf on the Lahn river. Later, in 1946, Rudolf Bahro met his father again who had survived in the region near Frankfurt where he had founded a new family, now.

From 1946 to 1950 Rudolf Bahro attended the Primary school at several places in the Oder region including Fürstenberg (today: Eisenhüttenstadt which in 1961 was created from Fürstenberg and Stalinstadt which, for its part, had been founded in 1951); later, until 1954, as a highly talented and intelligent pupil Rudolf attended the Secondary school. In 1950, Rudolf became a member of the GDR's youth organization FDJ (Freie Deutsche Jugend – Free German Youth), and in 1952 he became a member of the GDR's state party SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – Socialist Unity Party), persuaded by the positions of his teacher. As a member of the SED, Bahro felt as a part of a consciousnessful minority who were bound to the state GDR by a "hyper-historical perspective".

From 1954 to 1959, Bahro studied philosophy at "Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin"; among his teachers were Hager, Scheler, Klaus, Heise. The theme of his thesis was: "Johannes R. Becher and the relationship between the German working class and their party and the national question of the Germans". Afterwards, Bahro moved to a place named Sachsendorf in the Oder region, near the place he had grown up. Here he edited the newspaper "Die Linie" for the countryside population, here he married his old girlfriend Gundula Lembke.

In 1960, Bahro moved to Greifswald as a worker of the local SED party management. He founded the student's newspaper "Unsere Universität" (Our university) and became the responsible editor. In the same year, he first published poems titled "In dieser Richtung" (This direction).

In 1962, he started working as a referent of the Central Board in the Scientific branch of the Unions in Berlin. His area of work was the contact with the natural scientists at the universities.

Between 1965 and 1967, Bahro worked as the Deputy Chief Editor of the youth and student's journal "Forum" edited by the youth organization FDJ. His career as a journalist ended when he published Volker Braun's stage play "Kipper Paul Bauch" without having permission.

Bahro had to change to the industry where he worked between 1967 and 1977. During this time, he managed the party activities at his workplace. Finally, he became the head of the division "Scientific organization of work" at the company "Berliner Gummikombinat" (Berlin Rubber Plant). Besides the job Bahro officially wrote his dissertation on the development conditions of College absolvents in the socialized industry of the GDR which he handed to the Technical College Merseburg in 1975, but it was repelled by two negative experts (against three positive ones!). Since 1972 he worked on "The Alternative" as a reaction on the invasion of Warsaw Treaty forces into Czechoslovakia in 1968. Simultaneously, it was a reflexion of Bahro's individual ‚turnaround' which he proved in 1964 when the GDR leaders celebrated the republic's 15th Anniversary: As the aim of the party, Bahro acknowledged: the conservation of power and the fortification of her positions.

In 1973, the Bahro couple divorced for protecting Gundula and the children from possible repressions.

Due to his arrestation on 25. August 1977 after his book "The Alternative" had been published in Western Berlin and Western Germany, Rudolf Bahro became well-known all over the world. In June 1978, he was brought to court for "secret service activities" and sent to prison for 8 years. Consequently, there rose a wide solidarity movement and lots of international protests. As for the Lefts in the West – represented, for example, by individuals as Heinz Brandt and Rudi Dutschke in Western Germany – as for the dissidents in the East, Bahro emitted some impulse for regarding the proletarian movement and the Marxism from a new aspect.

In October 1979, Bahro was amnestied and released from the citizenship of GDR. He emigrated to the Federal Republic In January 1980, he was one of the most famous founders – as well as Herbert Gruhl and Petra Kelly – of the "Green Party". His aims were a cooperation between Red and Green, a new social movement out of traditional ideologies, the turn-off from left sectionalism and the acceptance of the challenges of the ecological question.

Already in the beginning of 1980, Bahro was promoted at the Hannover university (on the basis of his dissertation which had been repelled in Merseburg); in 1983 he habilitated himself in Social philosophy (also in Hannover).

In summer 1983, Bahro spent a few weeks in Rajneeshpuram, Oregon, USA - Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's community. Afterwards, Bahro made some positive remarks referring to Bhagwan and Rajneeshpuram, regarding the connection between the changing of the world, on the one hand, and of oneself, on the other hand. The basis for this could already be found in the "Alternative"; unfortunately, it had been mostly overseen. At the same time, he had a critical look at many facets of Bhagwan's experiment at Rajneeshpuram.

In 1984, Bahro's relationship to the Greens got more and more radical. On the one hand, he wanted to gather people who were prepared for the "challenge of community". On the other hand, he found in the Green party something like an "ultimate wish for power" – for self-realisation by political power. In summer 1985, Bahro left the Green party.

He was not seen for a long time in the public because he was working on his new book, "The Logics of Saving" (published in English as "Avoiding Social and Ecological Disaster"). Edited in 1987, this book was Bahro's answer to Gorbachov's Perestroika. Anew he discussed the questions of the conditions for the general emancipation – questions he already had asked in the last capture of his "Alternative". The aim was to articulate the fundamental principles of communities for an "Invisible Church" – an idea Hegel, Fichte, Hülderlin had dreamt of.

In November 1989, Bahro left the "Lernwerkstatt" at Niederstadtfeld in Western Germany (in 1988, he had married his second wife, Beatrice Ingermann, there) and returned to the GDR. On 16th December 1989 he spoke to the delegates of the last SED convention (which, at the same time, was the foundation of the new party PDS, the "Party of Democratic Socialism") presenting his vision of a socio-ecological restructuring of the GDR. Unfortunately, his radical ecological conclusions didn't meet the understanding of the convention.

On 15. June 1990 Bahro was fully rehabilitated by the Supreme Court of the GDR. His advocate was Gregor Gysi, as during the process in 1978.

In spring 1990, Bahro started building the "Institute for Social Ecology" at the Berlin Humboldt-Universität. Beginning from the Winter semester 1990/91, Bahro held public lectures on issues of the ecological crisis developing the theses of his book "Logik der Rettung". These lectures met the extraordinary interest of the public. The foundation and development of the "Institute for Social Ecology" which was to gather scientists from different areas – natural science, economics, humanities, social science – focussed on the general problems of the future of mankind. However, it was quite difficult: Bahro's ideas were an extraordinary challenge to the Culture and Science Board of the Berlin Senate, on the one hand, and the university's administration, an the other hand.

Based on the conceptions that Bahro had already designed in Western Germany and with the help of the Saxonian Prime Minister, Bahro's mental friend Biedenkopf, Bahro initiated and supported the practical implementation of socio-ecological experiments, especially, the development of the experiment "LebensGut Pommritz" near Bautzen in Saxony.

In September 1993, Bahro's wife committed suicide. In the beginning of the 1995 Bahro was diagnosed with blood cancer (his working ability had already been limited earlier), and he married Marina Lehnert.

Bahro's last political texts were situated between the poles of two conceptions – the conception of a real, i.e. spiritual communism, and the conception of the integral human being.

On 5. December 1997 Rudolf Bahro died. He was buried an 12. December on the cemetery Dorotheenstädtischer Kirchhof in Berlin – near Hegel and Fichte, Bert Brecht and Johannes R. Becher.