Peter Huchel was born in 1903 in Lichterfelde, a suburb of Berlin. His first book of poems, Der Knabenteich, received the Dresden Award for Poetry while still in typescript, but Huchel withdrew it from publication in 1933 in protest against the Nazi rise to power. In 1940 he was conscripted into the German army and spent time in the Soviet Union as a prisoner of war. In 1949 he became the editor of Sinn und Form, the most distinguished and influential literary magazine in the GDR at the time. In 1962 he was dismissed because he would not adhere to the party line, publicly disgraced, and driven into internal exile, but was permitted to emigrate in 1971. His collections include Gedichte (Poems), Chausseen Chausseen (Roads Roads), Die Sternenreuse (The Star-Trap), Gezahlte Tage (Days That Are Numbered), and Die Neunte Stunde (The Ninth Hour). He lived in West Germany until his death in 1981.