Viereck was born in New York City, the son of George Sylvester Viereck. He received his B.A. "summa cum laude" in history from Harvard University in 1937. He then specialized in European history, receiving his M.A. in 1939 and his Ph.D. in 1942, again from Harvard. Viereck was prolific in his writing from 1938. He published collections of poems, some first published in "Poetry Magazine". He won the annual Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1949 for the collection "Terror and Decorum". In 1955 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Florence.