Overview
- His death was confirmed by Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe on Thursday, October 29, 2026, with the publisher citing the family as the source of the announcement.
- He became best known for the aristocratic alter ego Harry von Duckwitz and a 1990s trilogy that used the character to deliver social satire and autobiographical touches.
- Von Westphalen built a long journalism career after studying Germanistics, working as an editor at Westermanns Monatshefte, being noticed by Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Transatlantik, and writing more than 300 columns for Munich’s Abendzeitung.
- Beyond print he curated a four-CD jazz box with a companion book and briefly hosted the 1997 TV program 'Dichtung und Wahnsinn', and he received the Ernst-Hoferichter-Preis in 1992.
- His work often provoked public controversy—most notably a 1987 exchange with Monika Maron—yet publishers and peers remember him as a distinctive, uncompromising voice who pushed cultural and political debate.