Max von der Grün was born in Sankt Georgen (Bayreuth) and grew up in Mitterteich.

After a clerical apprenticeship, he became a paratrooper during World War II in 1944.

He was captured by U.S. forces near Quimper (France) and became a prisoner of war, spending three years in prison camps in Scotland, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico.

After his release, he worked as a bricklayer, and from 1951 to 1963 in the Zeche Königsborn mine near Unna.

He started writing in 1955, initially poetry, later focusing on worker-class themes.