Wolfgang Herrndorf's memorial cross in Berlin marks writer's final moments

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On the bank of the Spandau Shipping Canal near Plötzensee stands a simple metal cross. On the back it reads W.H. 1965–2013.

Not a place for a car accident, a bicycle crash, or perhaps a drowning?

All wrong. This is the place where the painter and writer Wolfgang Herrndorf ended his life in August 2013. Suicides are sad, but not uncommon in the urban jungle. Yet behind this one lies a special story:

Herrndorf was a late bloomer as an author and had published hardly any literature until 2010, at the age of 45. He was a multi-talented artist – author, painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. His 2002 novel In Plüschgewittern (“In Plush Storms”) is about exactly such a character who struggles with himself and can’t get his act together.

In 2010, Herrndorf was diagnosed with a glioblastoma, the most malignant brain tumor there is – in Herrndorf’s own words, the “Rolls Royce” of brain cancers. Despite surgery and chemotherapy, the average life expectancy is not much longer than a year.

Now, all of us have a clock ticking... But how does one cope with such a diagnosis when it is clear the candle is almost burned out?

Herrndorf responded in two ways: On the one hand, he channeled his creativity and, despite fighting the disease and approaching death, completed works. Thus emerged the wonderful and well-filmed novel Tschick (“Goodbye Berlin”), a coming-of-age story. He resembled artists like David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, who were desperately productive near the end of their lives.

On the other hand, he found comfort in the autonomous decision over the timing of his own death – he obtained a weapon and mentally rehearsed the scenario of ending his life many times.

He reported all this online in his blog "Work and Structure," named after the maxims that helped him get through one day at a time. The posthumously published diary is a moving testimony to coping with a terminal illness. On August 26, 2013, Herrndorf bravely walked his path to the end. Friends placed the cross as he had wished in his testament.