Born in Bendorf, across the river from Koblenz, Kettenbach grew up in Cologne. On passing his school final exams he began a study course covering :de:Zeitungswissenschaft|Newspaper and Theatre studies, but his studies were cut short in 1953 by his father's death, after which he found himself taking over the running of his father's advertising agency. A succession of jobs, along with broken periods of further study followed. Between 1954 and 1956, and again between 1958 and 1964, he worked as a Literary editor for radio and television plays with the Cologne-based broadcaster, Westdeutscher Rundfunk. From 1956 to 1958 he worked on a voluntary basis for the news editorial department of the mass-circulation Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper. In 1958 he embarked on a more sustained period of study, covering subjects that included Philosophy and East-European History. Eventually, in 1964 or 1965, he received a doctorate from Cologne University. His dissertation concerned Lenin's :de:Imperialismustheorie|Theory of Imperialism.
Published output
Der lange Marsch der Bundesrepublik, Düsseldorf 1971
Das starke Geschlecht, Diogenes Verlag, Zürich 2009,
Tante Joice und die Lust am Leben. Geschichten und anderes. Diogenes Verlag, Zürich 2010,
In 1964 Kettenbach joined the editorial team on the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger; between 1966 and 1968 he was a chief reporter for the newspaper, and from 1968 he was employed as correspondent and head of its Bonn office. In 1974/75 he served as chairman of the :de:Bundespressekonferenz|Bundespressekonferenz in Bonn. In 1978 he was sent abroad as his newspaper's New York correspondent. Following his return, between 1988 and his retirement in 1992, he was deputy managing editor of the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger. As a journalist, he also contributed frequently to other newspapers, notably the Zürich based Tages-Anzeiger and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as well as regularly contributing reports on radio channels including DLF and WDR. Hans Werner Kettenbach embarked on his career as a writer while still a working journalist, in the 1970s, producing psychological crime fiction. The manuscript for his first novel, Grand mit Vieren was reportedly written in just fourteen days. Subsequently, he has become one of Germany's top crime fiction writers. He has also written a succession of radio and television plays, notably for the television crime drama series Klefisch in which his fellow Rhinelander Willy Millowitsch starred as the eponymous police commissioner between 1990 and 1996. Kettenbach was a member of the important :de:PEN-Zentrum Deutschland|German branch of PEN International. He died on 5 January 2018 at the age of 89.
