Doris Gercke: Bella Block creator dies

Crime writer Doris Gercke has died. The creator of the former ZDF detective “Bella Block” died at the age of 88 on July 25 in Hamburg, as the Argument publishing house based in the Hanseatic city announced on Monday evening, citing the family.

Gercke, born in Greifswald in 1937, had a detour through her literary career. After an administrative apprenticeship and years as a housewife and mother, she graduated from high school at the age of 40 with a gifted diploma and studied law. Her first novel, "Weinschröter, du musshängen," was a huge success in 1988 and was made into a television film in 1993, starring Hannelore Hoger as Bella Block. Hoger, who died in December 2024, portrayed the unconventional detective until the ZDF series ended in 2018.

The often contentious Gercke later sold the rights to the detective character in the film series, but remained friends with the actress Hoger. In her debut book, the author portrayed an atmosphere of desolation, everyday violence, and sexism.

The entertaining elements of the crime novel also served her in subsequent volumes to create dense, sometimes ironically nuanced depictions of the milieu – for example, in the Block cases "Moscow, My Love" (1989), "Kinderkorn" (1991), "Silence or Death" (2007), and "Between Night and Day" (2012). She says she was originally inspired by novels by Raymond Chandler and the Swedish author couple Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.

Gercke also wrote – initially under the pseudonym Marie-Jo Morell – Milena Prohaska crime novels ("Where It Hurts," 2016) about a supposedly emancipated antiheroine on a quest for self-discovery. Children's and young adult books, as well as poetry, are also part of the author's oeuvre.

For many years, Gercke felt connected to the women's and peace movements, as well as the fight against neo-fascism. As a young woman, she joined the German Communist Party (DKP). She regularly participated in Easter marches and demonstrations. "I'm with the lower class, from which I come, and with the women," Gercke said in an interview with dpa on her 80th birthday.