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Turned the Eifel into a thriller: Jacques Berndorf
Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd / picture alliance / dpa
The well-known Eifel crime author Jacques Berndorf is dead. He died on Sunday at the age of 85 in his home in Dreis-Brück in the volcanic Eifel, his wife Geli Gatzke-Preute told the German Press Agency on Monday.
He was ill and died "of old age after a long, eventful life".
Born in Duisburg, whose real name was Michael Preute, he was considered one of the most successful German crime writers in Germany and a co-inventor of regional crime fiction.
According to its publisher Ralf Kramp, Berndorf has sold more than six million books.
It all started in 1989 with his first Eifel thriller »Eifel-Blues« – a good 20 more followed.
At the time, Berndorf was an important source of inspiration for the regional thriller boom, said Kramp in nearby Hillesheim.
»Berndorf has cracked the provinces.« Before »Eifel-Blues« crime novels were mainly played in big cities.
After dropping out of medical school, Michael Preute completed a traineeship at the »Duisburger Generalanzeiger«.
From 1962 to 1964 he was a court reporter for the "Neue Ruhr Zeitung" and then regional editor and head of the Lower Rhine region for the "Rheinische Post".
In 1967, Preute moved to »Stern« and became head of the North Rhine-Westphalia editorial team in Düsseldorf.
He later switched to the magazine »Quick« in Munich.
In 1968 he was arrested for reporting on the invasion of the Soviet army from Czechoslovakia.
There were differences with the "Quick" boss, whereupon Preute resigned and worked as a freelance journalist.
He traveled the world as a reporter for about twelve years.
"I've seen wars and crises." In Lebanon, Vietnam and South Africa.
"And at some point it turned out that I couldn't take the pictures anymore," he said.
He became addicted to alcohol and got out.
In 1984 the journalist settled in the Eifel, initially he lived there in Berndorf, which inspired his pseudonym as a crime writer.
But initially he still reported from the region, also for SPIEGEL, but increasingly concentrated on the production of novels.
Jacques Berndorf published his first Eifel thriller entitled "Eifel-Blues" and his alter ego, the journalist Siggi Baumeister as a hobby investigator, in 1989. By 2009, 4.5 million copies of the Eifel crime series had been sold.
The volume with the title »Eifel-Schnee« was filmed by ZDF under the title »Brennendes Schweigen«.
In 2006, the Berndorf thriller »Eifel-Frieden«, directed by Carsten Ramm, premiered at the theater in Trier.
His 20th Eifel thriller »The Nürburg Papers« dealt with the financial affair surrounding the expansion of the Nürburgring.
After just a few weeks, 130,000 copies had been sold.
In the end, Berndorf's books "were the ones that gradually freed the genre [of regional crime novels] from their supposed stable smell," judged Die Welt.
With his thrillers, the author not only made the region famous, but also promoted tourism.
The "Eifel Crime Trail" now leads to the crime scenes of his crime stories on two 18 and 20 km long routes.
The crime festival "Tatort Eifel" was also based on Berndorf's idea.
In 2007 he wrote an "instruction manual for the Eifel", which he once described as his masterpiece.
In it he expressed his love for this region.
feb/dpa
