Berthold Auerbach

Born Moses Baruch Auerbacher in Nordstetten in 1812, Berthold Auerbach was a German writer who grew up in a Jewish family and later became famous under the name by which he is now remembered. He first studied for the rabbinate, but turned instead to literature and scholarship.

He gained early notice with works connected to the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, then won a broad audience with his Black Forest Village Stories. Those stories, along with later novels and narratives, made everyday rural life a serious literary subject and earned him a large readership in Germany and beyond.

Auerbach spent much of his career in the world of letters and became an important voice in 19th-century German realism. He died in Cannes in 1882, leaving behind fiction that was admired for its human sympathy, vivid sense of place, and attention to ordinary people.