Reimer was born in 1948 in Hamburg. He visited the "Gymnasium Altona" which he finished in 1967. He studied history and philosophy at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, where he first met his later co-author Lutz Tornow, with whom he was connected in friendship till the end of his life. Uwe Reimer received a doctor's degree in 1978.

His first book publication in two volumes, Alltag unterm Hakenkreuz (1980), was criticised of being too uncritical. His following works earned little attention, until he had a big success with Die USA (1992) in collaboration with Lutz Tornow.

For health-related reasons he backed off into family life with his wife and his two children and kept only little writing activity. Uwe Reimer died in 2004 in Göttingen.

(selection)

• Alltag unterm Hakenkreuz and
• Alltag unterm Hakenkreuz II. Alltag der Entrechteten., Rowohlt, 1980, ISBN 3-499-14625-8
• Die USA (with Lutz Tornow), Diesterweg, 1992, ISBN 3-425-03258-5

• Uwe Reimer in the German National Library catalogue