The son of an army officer, FRANZ TAUT grew up in Munich. Having graduated from high school, he joined the Reichswehr, which he left in 1928. Franz then travelled to South Africa, Venezuela, Columbia and the West Indies. He returned to Germany in 1933 and worked as a journalist for such newspapers as the Berliner Tageblatt and the Berliner Lokai-Anzeiger. Taut was drafted into the Wehrmacht, as an officer and war correspondent, in August 1939. Having participated in the fighting on the Eastern Front, he was captured by American troops in the Ruhr in April 1945. After his release in 1946, he settled in Wolfratshausen as a freelance writer and once again took up writing.