Author of war novel Das Boot dies

Lothar-Guenther Buchheim was also an art collector and set up the Museum der Phantasie (Museum of the Imagination) in Bernried, Bavaria, in 2001.

He based Das Boot on his experiences as a submarine officer during the war.

The acclaimed 1981 six-hour film adaptation was the most expensive movie in German history at the time.

The claustrophobic view of life on board a U-boat was edited into a cinema version, earning six Academy Award nominations, including for film-maker Wolfgang Petersen's direction and adapted screenplay.

Buchheim's wartime experiences were the basis of several other fiction and non-fiction works, while he also wrote books on art.

"As an artist, author and art collector, Buchheim spent his entire life using his immense creativity and multifaceted passion for art," said Bavaria governor Edmund Stoiber.

Buchheim was born in the eastern German city of Weimar in 1918. He is survived by a wife and two children.