Elly Welt was a novelist, professor, and mother of three. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Morningside College and her PhD from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first published novel, Joanna Reddinghood, was released in 1980. In 1973, she met Peter Welt, a Berlin native and retired anesthesiologist living in the Canary Islands. Fascinated by him and his story, she moved to the Canary Islands to interview him about how he survived the war while hidden in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute outside of Berlin. This became the basis of Berlin Wild, which was originally published in 1986, and Peter became the love of her life. Peter passed away in 1999. Elly passed away in 2018.