Friedrich (Fritz) Reck-Malleczewen was born on the estate of Malleczewen, Masuria (Maleczewo, Poland), the son of the Prussian politician and landowner Hermann Reck.

In 1937 he published a historical novel on the Münster rebellion, Bockelson: History of a Mass Delusion, seen as a critical allegory of Hitler and Nazism.

[2] Today his best-known work is Diary of a Man in Despair (Tagebuch eines Verzweifelten), his journal of life as a dissident intellectual under dystopian Nazi rule.

On 13 October, he was arrested and charged under German military law with the serious offence of "undermining the morale of the armed forces," which could be punished by death on the guillotine.

[3] In April of 1945 Dutch writer Nico Rost encountered a man leaving the camp infirmary claiming to be Reck.