She was known for books such as The Last Children of Schewenborn and Die Wolke (The Cloud, published in English under the title Fall-Out)[1] which became part of the German school canon.

Her key interests included peace and protection of the environment, and she warned of the alleged dangers of nuclear energy.

Her father died in World War II, and her mother fled with the children to the West,[4] settling in Wiesbaden.

[3] After her retirement, she achieved her Ph.D. with a dissertation entitled "Vergessene Jugendschriftsteller der Erich-Kästner-Generation (Forgotten young-adult writers of Erich Kästner's generation).

[2] In 2011, she named as her four main topics: She wrote her novel Die Wolke (literally: The Cloud) in 1987, after the Chernobyl disaster,[2] using information that the organisation "Ärzte gegen den Atomtod" (Physicians against Nuclear Death) had published at the end of the 1970s.