Fred Breinersdorfer was born on the 6th December 1946 in Mannheim, Germany. He studied law and sociology at the universities of Mainz and Tübingen and received a PhD from the University of Tübingen. As a young lawyer he specialized in constitutional and administration law in Stuttgart. He lives in Berlin, Germany and has two children, Leonie, a lawyer and writer, and Julian, an architect. He wrote his first crime novel in 1980 and further developed it into a successful detective book and movie series about French attorney Jean Abel. In 1994, Breinersdorfer lost a close political race, running for German Federal Parliament as a SPD candidate for the party of Willy Brandt. After the race and ready for a change, he closed his law practice to become a full-time professional writer. His credits include 12 novels, a formidable list of short stories, theatrical productions, radio plays, and 65 films and prime-time TV movies. He was the president of the German Writer's Association (VS) and is a member of the German P.E.N. and the Deutsche Filmakademie. He wrote and co-produced the Academy Award nominated feature film Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage (2005), which became a surprise success worldwide. Fred Breinersdorfer has received the German Film Award and the Adolf Grimme Preis and continues to write for TV and cinema.