Bernhard Kellermann

Born in Fürth on March 4, 1879, Bernhard Kellermann was a German writer who first studied in Munich and also worked as a painter before turning fully to literature. Early books such as Yester und Li, Ingeborg, and Der Tor helped establish his name, but his biggest breakthrough came with Der Tunnel (1913), a novel about building a tunnel between Europe and North America.

That book became an international success and remains the work most closely associated with him. Reference works describe him as a journalist and novelist, and note that his fiction often combined technical imagination with strong feeling for modern life and public events. Other notable works include Der 9. November, inspired by the upheavals in Germany after 1918, as well as later novels such as Das blaue Band and Totentanz.

Kellermann died on October 17, 1951, near Potsdam. Today he is remembered above all for turning the dreams and anxieties of the machine age into dramatic, accessible fiction.