Heinz G. Konsalik

[2] Many of his books deal with war and showed the German human side of things as experienced by their soldiers and families at home, for instance Das geschenkte Gesicht (Mask My Agony / The Changed Face) which deals with a German soldier's recovery after his sledge ran over an anti-personnel mine and destroyed his face, and how this affected his relationship with his wife at home.

In 1938 he published what he considered his “first usable poem.”[3] On 31 August 1939 he completed the heroic tragedy Der Geuse (“The Beggar”) as a senior secondary student.

In December 1939 he started working for the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.

In the same year Günther sought membership in the Nazi writer's union, the Reich Chamber of Writers (Reichsschrifttumskammer) but was initially rejected due to the limited scope of his literary work.

[3] After graduating from the Humboldt-Gymnasium in Cologne, which required membership in the Nazi party and the teaching of its discredited but then pervasive racial theories, he studied medicine and later switched to theatre studies, literary history and German literature.