As a painter, he participated in important exhibitions; as a writer, he was known for his lyric volume Halunkenpostille and his autobiographical novel Der blaue Heinrich.

Graßhoff was born and spent his youth in Quedlinburg, Saxony-Anhalt, where his father, a former sailor, worked as a coal merchant and farmer.

[1] His paintings were first shown in Celle in 1947, then in 1954 in his first important art exhibit at the kestnergesellschaft in Hannover along with works by Max Beckmann and Paul Klee.

[1] In addition to his often crude songs and ballads, set to music by such composers as Heinz Gietz, James Last, Lotar Olias, Wolfgang Schulz, Norbert Schultze and Siegfried Strohbach, he translated from Greek, from Latin, including texts by the Roman Martial, and from Swedish, with works by the national poet, Carl Michael Bellman.

[1] In Celle, an archive is kept at the Bomann Museum, his atelier in the garden of his home still exists, and the street Fritz-Grasshoff-Gasse[note 1] is named after him.