For 460 years, the author of "Eulenspiegel" managed to keep his name a secret from the countless readers of his book. However, in 1971, his time came: the Zurich lawyer Dr. Peter Honegger unmasked him. The true identity revealed was Hermann Bote (circa 1467 - circa 1520), a customs clerk from Braunschweig. The first partially preserved edition of his book was published anonymously in 1510/11 by Johannes Grüninger in Strasbourg. Bote, who was hardly known to a wider readership, was described by the renowned literary historian Josef Nadler in 1939 as "the most gifted poet of the 15th century, perhaps of the entire Lower Saxon tribe." The poet, born as the son of a master blacksmith in Braunschweig, was a customs clerk in his hometown around 1488, a lower district judge (Amtsvogt) around 1493, and likely later served as the administrator of the Braunschweig Old Town Council cellar. The folk book.