Bernhard Schlink (born 6 July 1944 in Bielefeld) is a German lawyer and writer. He was born in Bethel, Germany, to a German father (Edmund Schlink) and a Swiss mother, the youngest of four children. Both his parents were theology students, although his father lost his job as a Professor of Theology due to the Nazis, and had to settle on being a pastor instead. Bernhard Schlink was brought up in Heidelberg from the age of two. He studied law at West Berlin’s Free University, graduating in 1968.