Horst Bernhardt comes from Hesse and studied Finno-Ugristics in Göttingen. After a period in Berlin, he lived for many years in Kaustinen, Ostrobothnia, and taught German at the University in Vaasa. In Turku he worked for a translation agency before moving back to Berlin.
During the years 1982-86 Bernhardt was a collaborator of Trajekt. Beiträge zur finnischen, finnlandschwedischen, lappischen und estnischen Literatur, published both in Finland an West-Germany. He translated literary texts by Veijo Meri and Hannu Salama from Finnish, authors such as Tõnu Õnneplau and Viivi Luik from Estonian, and poetry from Latvian and, more recently, Yiddish.