People like Otfried Preußler

Otfried Preußler (sometimes spelled as Otfried Preussler; both pronounced [ˈɔt.fʁiːt ˈpʁɔɪ̯s.lɐ] (listen); born Otfried Syrowatka; 20 October 1923 – 18 February 2013) was a German children's books author. More than 50 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide and they have been translated into 55 languages. His best-known works are The Robber Hotzenplotz and The Satanic Mill (Krabat).

He was born in Liberec (Reichenberg), Czechoslovakia. His mother Erna Syrowatka, née Tscherwenka, and his father Josef Syrowatka were both teachers. They changed their family name from the Czech Syrowatka to the German Preußler in 1941 during the Nazi occupation of the country. After he graduated school in 1942, in the midst of World War II, he was drafted into the German Army. Although he survived the military action on the Eastern Front, he was taken prisoner as a 21-year-old lieutenant in 1944. He spent the next five years in various POW camps in the Tatar Republic.