Born into the family of a cigar maker, after graduating from primary school he became a metal worker. From 1916 to 1917 he was a member of the , from 1917 to 1920 of the
Spartakusbund and from 1919 of the
Communist Party of Germany. In 1923 he took part in the
Hamburg Uprising and was sentenced to two years in prison. After his amnesty in 1925, he worked as a lathe operator in the
Kampnagel factory while being the editor of various communist news outlets. Due to "Preparing literary treason and high treason", he was in 1930 sentence to two years imprisonment. He wrote his first novels while in custody. Soon after the
Nazis seized power in 1933, Bredel was imprisoned at
Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. He was released in spring 1934. Fleeing from
Nazi Germany, he went to
Czechoslovakia and then
Moscow, where he lived at the
Hotel Lux. He published
Die Prüfung (1934), a novel describing the
Nazi concentration camp, which was reprinted several times and translated into other languages. Bredel took part in the
Spanish Civil War as
commissar of the
Thälmann Battalion as well as the
Second World War, in which he fought on the
Soviet side. His propaganda material, along with those of
Walter Ulbricht and
Erich Weinert was used in an attempt to lure the
6th Army into surrendering at the
Battle of Stalingrad. After the war, he returned to Germany as part of the
Sobottka Group, sent to lay the groundwork for the Soviet occupation of
Mecklenburg. He later lived in
East Germany and died in
East Berlin. ==Awards and decorations==