Schlink, Bernhard

The German lawyer and author Bernhard Schlink was born in Grossdornberg (now part of the city of Bielefeld) and grew up in Heidelberg. His mother was Swiss and his father German, a professor of theology at the University of Heidelberg. As a young man Schlink was interested in literature; he wanted either to become an author or to study history and sociology. But he followed his father's advice and decided to study for a profession. He read law at Heidelberg and West Berlin; he earned his doctor's degree in 1975, was made a senior lecturer in 1981 and became Professor of Law at the universities of Bonn and Frankfurt in 1982. After the fall of the Berlin wall he became involved in the unification of Germany. As of 1992, Bernhard Schlink is professor at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. Up until 2006 he was also a judge at the Constitutional Court for the federal state of Nordrhein-Westfalen.