Born in 1914, Alfred Andersch attended a private Munich boys' school, which was in fact run by the father of Heinrich Himmler, as depicted in his last book ›The Father of a Murderer‹. In 1933 Alfred Andersch spent six months in Dachau concentration camp for his activities as a Communist youth leader. After deserting the Wehrmacht army in 1944, he spent over a year as a prisoner of war in America. After returning to Germany, he was the editor of several newspapers as well as a prominent novelist. A founder of ›Group 47‹, that distinguished company of German writers whose members included Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass, Andersch won the »Nelly Sachs Prize« (for ›Efraim's Book‹) in 1968. He died in 1980 in Berzona /Ticino.