Hermlin was born in 1915 in Chemnitz, Germany, in what is now the Federal State of Saxony, the son of Jewish immigrant and art collector David Leder and his wife Lola, he grew both in Chemnitz and in Berlin. In 1931, he joined a communist youth organization. From 1933 until 1936, he worked as a printer's apprentice. He emigrated from Germany in 1936, and between then and his return to Germany in 1945 at the end of World War II, lived in Palestine, France, and Switzerland. After his return to Germany, he worked as a radio broadcaster in Frankfurt am Main. He moved to East Berlin in 1947, and was a contributor to several communist magazines, including "Tägliche Rundschau," "Ulenspiegel," "Aufbau," and "Sinn und Form." Tägliche Rundschau (English: Daily Review) was the official newspaper of the Soviet military administration and later the Soviet High Commission in East Berlin until 1955. As the author of several well-known pro-Stalin propaganda songs, Hermlin soon was working in some of the most important governmental bodies in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany. By 1949, he was one of the most powerful and influential writers in the newly founded German Democratic Republic. As a close friend of Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, Hermlin soon found himself at the forefront of East German culture and politics, and split his time between them.