One is surprised by two features of Heym's earliest years as a professional writer: first, his youth, and second, his versatility. By the age of twenty-two he had published poetry, fiction, newspaper articles and reviews, and two of his dramas had been performed. He might well have wished a more gradual start to his career, but the choice was not his: as an exile from Nazi Germany, he was forced to write simply in order to survive. And to write, moreover, in anonymity. ‘Stefan Heym’ is one of several noms de plume under which his first pieces appeared.

Helmut Flieg was born in the industrial city of Chemnitz on 10 April 1913. His father, Daniel, was married to the much younger Elsa, only daughter of a successful textile businessman, and a second child was born to the Fliegs in the spring of 1918. The whole family was Jewish, and Daniel worked for his father-in-law's company in an executive capacity. Throughout the boys' youth the Fliegs therefore enjoyed a sound financial existence, and for a period in the twenties, when the textile industry was flourishing, they moved to a large house in one of the more prestigious parts of the town. But depression affected them like others, and a return to the original flat proved necessary after a few years.