Adam Kuckhoff grew up in Aachen, where his father was a manufacturer. He and Adolf Grimme had been friends since their college days in Halle. In the 1920s Kuckhoff was director of the Frankfurt Artists’ Theater touring company. He edited the works of Georg Büchner and was editor of the journal “Tat” (“Deed”), where he published the first reports by John Sieg. In 1930 he became dramatic adviser at the Berlin Schauspielhaus. Kuckhoff wrote plays - from 1932 on as a freelance author - and published the novels “Scherry” in 1930 and “Der Deutsche von Bayencourt” in 1937. Through Greta Lorke - whom he married in 1937 - he became friendly with Arvid and Mildred Harnack from 1933 on. The friendship grew into a discussion circle which was later joined by Adolf Grimme and John Sieg. In 1940 Kuckhoff met Harro Schulze-Boysen. Kuckhoff collaborated on illegal pamphlets including “The Inner Front” and “Open Letters to the Eastern Front”, and also had contact to the Soviet embassy representative Alexander Korotkov. On September 12, 1942 the Gestapo arrested Adam Kuckhoff while he was filming in Prague. He was sentenced to death by the Reich Court Martial on February 3, 1943 and murdered on August 5, 1943 in Berlin-Plötzensee.