Born in Vilnius, Hell came from an impoverished petit bourgeois family that had emigrated to Germany after the First World War. He joined communist associations in his youth. He later studied law at the universities of Jena and Leipzig and in 1922 joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). During the Weimar Republic, Hell worked for various communist newspapers, as a translator and as a factory and farm worker.Michael Tschesno-Hell on Akademie der Künste
