Born with a severe congenital cleft palate that permanently affected his ability to speak, Ernst Herbeck experienced a difficult education but went on to study commerce after secondary school. After the Second World War, he spent time at the Vienna University Clinic before being hospitalized again in 1947 for schizophrenia. Subject to hallucinations, he was admitted in 1946 to the Gugging psychiatric institution.
In 1961, he became a resident of the House of Artists in Gugging, at the initiative of Professor Navratil, who recognized his literary talent. During their meetings, Navratil provided him with titles from which Herbeck composed short poems. This creative process gave rise to a work of remarkable freedom, now recognized as a major contribution to contemporary German-language poetry.
In 1977, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag published Alexanders poetische Texte [Alexander’s Poetic Texts], followed in 1999 by Im Herbst da reiht der Feenwind: gesammelte Texte 1960-1991 [In Autumn, the Fairy Wind Lines Up: Collected Texts 1960–1991], published by Residenz Verlag. A selection of his work is available in French under the title 100 poèmes (Harpo &, 2002).