A journalist and author, during World War II Buchheim was war correspondent for Germany, and served briefly on a Unterseeboot (better known in English as a “U-Boat”) — U-96.
During the war his writings about the submarine’s missions were used as propaganda. After the war, he turned to writing novels, and in 1973 published Das Boot * (“The Boat”), which was made into the 1981 anti-war film of the same name, which won international acclaim. Buchheim also was a photographer, and took more than 5,000 photographs during his time on the U-96; they were published in a nonfiction work U-Boat Krieg (“U-Boat War”). The U-96 was an anomaly among U-Boats: there were no casualties among its crew, even though it went on 11 missions — and was sunk on its last one.
Buchheim also collected art, and created the Buchheim Museum of Imagination, which has an extensive collection of Expressionism works. He died February 22 from heart failure. He was 89.