[1] He also wrote under the pseudonyms Hans Walldorf, Bernd Diksen and Waldemar Naß.

He was a conscripted soldier in World War II and a Nazi Party member, he was captured by US troops in 1945.

In 1947 he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and became a journalist for the Leipziger Volkszeitung.

[1] In 1995, Frank Beyer directed the film Nikolaikirche, which was written, at first, as a screenplay by Loest, who later made it a novel.

In his later years, Loest became seriously ill and announced at an Academy of Arts ceremony in 2010 that he did not have the strength to write another novel.