Herbert Otto 
Time of the Storks [PDF ebook] 

Herbert Otto was born in 1925 in Breslau (now Wroclaw), the son of a seamstress. He died in 2003 in Ahrenshoop. He was fourteen at the beginning of the Second World War and twenty when it was over. Like all young men of his generation in Germany, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht. He was sent to the Soviet Union. But he was among the lucky for he was taken prisoner. As a prisoner-of-war, he learned the reality of Socialism. He returned to Germany in 1949 — the year of the founding of the German Democratic Republic. In Berlin he worked as editor and in theatre. For his first novel, The Lie, he received the Theodor Fontane award.
Journeys to Asia and to Cuba resulted in three books of reportage. His screenplay, “September Love”, was filmed by DEFA.