He published in Herwarth Walden's expressionist journal Der Sturm and founded his own publication Das neue Pathos.

While keeping a classic form, his poems reveal a tendency towards expressionism through the themes of the city, mines, oppression, and alienation.

His financial wealth allowed him to acquire a small house near Lake Bestensee to the southeast of Berlin.

In 1921, he published anonymously erotic poems (Allegro de Plaisir), including sonnets inspired by his relationship with the young Hilde Herb.

[1] At first in August 1933, suspected of embezzlement and theft, he left Berlin for Vienna and Trieste and embarked there for Montevideo, Buenos Aires.

As a supporter of the SPD and prominent left-wing intellectual, Zech did not return to Nazi Germany.

Die Liste allein der Buchpublikationen Zechs umfasst viele Dutzend Titel.