Bernhard Schlink (born in 1944) is a German jurist and writer, world-renowned for his novel The Reader (*Der Vorleser*, 1995), translated into more than 50 languages. His work explores guilt, memory, and the moral legacy of Nazism.
Bernhard Schlink(1944 — ?)
Bernhard Schlink
Allemagne
8 min read
Frequently asked questions
Famous Quotes
« The crimes of the past do not disappear simply because we keep silent about them.»
Key Facts
- Born **July 6, 1944**, in **Bielefeld**, Germany
- Published *The Reader* (*Der Vorleser*) in **1995**, the first German novel to appear on the *New York Times* bestseller list
- *The Reader* was adapted for the screen in **2008** by **Stephen Daldry** with **Kate Winslet** (Academy Award for Best Actress)
- Professor of public law and legal philosophy at **Humboldt University of Berlin**
- His work is included in several European school curricula as a key example of *Vergangenheitsbewältigung* (coming to terms with the past)
Works & Achievements
Schlink's first crime novel, co-written with Walter Popp, featuring detective Gerhard Selb, a former Nazi prosecutor turned private investigator. The novel begins the exploration of guilt and impossible redemption that runs throughout his entire body of work.
Schlink's masterpiece, translated into more than 50 languages and adapted for film in 2008. The novel explores the relationship between a teenage boy and a former SS guard, questioning guilt, shame, and the memory of Nazism in postwar Germany.
A collection of seven stories about impossible loves and acts of renunciation. Schlink examines the mechanisms by which people avoid moral and emotional responsibility, extending the themes of *The Reader* into more intimate territory.
A novel in which a man searches for his missing father through the ruins of postwar German memory. This quest for identity is woven around pulp novels from the postwar years and the accounts of soldiers returning from the Eastern Front.
A novel about a former RAF terrorist released after twenty years in prison, reunited with old friends. Schlink shifts his meditation on political guilt toward the left-wing terrorism of the 1970s.
A philosophical and legal essay in which Schlink develops his thinking on collective guilt, inherited responsibility, and the moral obligations of the second generation with regard to the crimes of Nazism.
Anecdotes
The Reader (Der Vorleser, 1995) was the first German novel to reach the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list, in 1999. This unexpected success in the United States propelled Schlink to the rank of the most widely read German writers in the world, with translations into more than 50 languages.
Bernhard Schlink pursues a rare dual career: he is both an acclaimed novelist and a senior legal scholar, having served as a judge on the Constitutional Court of North Rhine-Westphalia. This experience with law and justice directly informs his novels, where legal guilt and moral guilt are constantly intertwined.
British actress Kate Winslet won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2009 for her role in the film adaptation of The Reader, directed by Stephen Daldry with Ralph Fiennes. She stated that the novel had profoundly affected her through its way of addressing shame and memory.
Schlink belongs to the German 'second generation' — children born during or just after Nazism, who grew up gradually discovering their parents' complicity in the crimes of the regime. This collectively traumatic experience lies at the heart of all his literary work and philosophical essays.
In The Reader, Schlink uses Hannah's illiteracy as a metaphor to explore how an ordinary person can commit monstrous acts without fully grasping their moral weight. This psychological dimension has sparked intense academic debate about the nature of collective guilt and the banality of evil.
Primary Sources
"I loved Hanna and I didn't want to lose her. But at the same time I wanted to be rid of her. I no longer wanted to find myself in that situation, no longer wanted to see that look, no longer wanted to hear that voice."
"The second generation did not commit the crimes of Nazism, but it inherited their moral weight. The question is not whether we are guilty, but how we must live with this inherited guilt."
"People carry their past like a house on their back. Sometimes they can set that house down, and sometimes they no longer can."
"Literature can do what the law cannot: it can give voice to moral complexity, to ambiguity, to what resists any definitive judgment."
Key Places
The birthplace of Bernhard Schlink in 1944. This city in North Rhine-Westphalia, shaped by postwar reconstruction, is representative of the Germany in which his generation came of age.
The main setting of *The Reader*, where the affair between young Michael and Hannah Schmitz unfolds. Schlink studied law here, and this romantically charming university town forms the backdrop of the narrator's troubled memory.
The city where Schlink taught law at Humboldt University. Reunified Berlin, with its memorials and visible urban scars, is an everyday environment that feeds his work on memory and the traces of the past.
The city of the Auschwitz trials (1963–1965), which profoundly shaped the German conscience. In *The Reader*, a similar trial is the moment when Michael encounters Hannah as an adult and grasps the full extent of her war crimes.
The city where *The Reader* achieved its greatest international success in 1999, reaching the top of the *New York Times* bestseller list. This American reception transformed Schlink into a global figure in literature on the memory of the Holocaust.
Typical Objects
A trained jurist, Schlink devoted his academic career to public law. His lawyer's bookshelves fuel his reflections on guilt, responsibility, and justice — themes that run throughout his literary work.
Like many writers of his generation, Schlink first composed his texts on a typewriter before the computer age. The slow, deliberate writing this tool demands matches his spare, precise literary style.
In *The Reader*, the character of Michael sends Hannah, who is imprisoned, cassettes on which he records himself reading books aloud. These tapes symbolize the ambiguous bond that persists despite guilt, shame, and separation.
The hearing records from the major postwar trials are a foundational source for Schlink, whose work is rooted in the legal reality of Nazi crimes and in the way the law attempts — imperfectly — to judge the unbearable.
Schlink has published numerous articles on constitutional law. These journals embody his double life as an intellectual torn between the world of positive law and that of fiction, which questions its moral limits.
The city of Heidelberg, with its university, castle, and romantic alleyways, is the setting of *The Reader*. This luminous backdrop deliberately contrasts with the moral darkness of the plot, creating the dramatic tension that defines the novel.
School Curriculum
Vocabulary & Tags
Key Vocabulary
Daily Life
Morning
Bernhard Schlink begins his days with careful reading of the press and university correspondence. As a professor of constitutional law at Humboldt University of Berlin, he prepares his lectures in the morning, balancing legal rigor with moral reflection. This daily intellectual discipline is inseparable from his work as a writer.
Afternoon
His afternoons are divided between teaching, public law seminars, and literary writing. Schlink has always maintained this double life as an academic and a novelist, defending the idea that the two activities feed one another. Writing days are silent and focused, fully in keeping with the stylistic restraint that characterizes his work.
Evening
In the evening, Schlink moves through Berlin's intellectual circles, attending lectures or public readings. He regularly takes part in debates on memory and justice in Germany, speaking at academic or literary forums. The intense cultural life of reunified Berlin provides a stimulating setting for his thinking.
Food
The diet of a German academic in the second half of the twentieth century is shaped by bourgeois Rhenish and Berliner cuisine: rye bread, cold cuts, potatoes, and coffee in abundance. University canteens and Berlin breweries serve as meeting places for intellectuals, where discussions continue long after the formal occasion.
Clothing
Schlink favors the understated, functional dress of the German intellectual: jacket, sweater, dress trousers. Neither ostentatious nor careless, a quiet elegance that mirrors his spare literary style. As a constitutional judge, he wears the black robe during solemn hearings.
Housing
Schlink lives in Berlin, in an apartment typical of the city's intelligentsia, surrounded by tall bookshelves filled with legal and literary works. The reunified city, with its still-visible scars — vacant lots, buildings pocked with bullet holes — is an everyday environment that feeds his work on memory and the traces of the past.
Historical Timeline
Period Vocabulary
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
Selbs Justiz (La Justice Selb)
1987
Liebesfluchten (Fuites d'amour)
2000
Der Heimkehrer (Le Retour)
2006
Das Wochenende (Le Week-end)
2008
Guilt about the Past (La Culpabilité sur le passé)
2010
