Albert Drach was born in Vienna and studied law at the University of Vienna from 1921 to 1925, earning a Ph.D in Jurisprudence in 1926. Drach was a practicing lawyer from 1934 to 1938, and at the same time he embarked on a literary career encouraged by Anton Wildgans and Arnold Zweig.
Following the Anschluss (1938), Drach could not practice as a lawyer anylonger. In the same year he emigrated to Yugoslavia on a visa from the Republic of Liberia, then he emigrated on a transit visa to France, where he made contacts with the French Resistance. He was arrested repeatedly. At the end of WW2, Drach was an interpreter with US Army in Nice, France, from 1944 to 1945.
In 1948, Albert Drach returned to Austria and restarted his activity both as a practicing lawyer and a writer. Drach wrote novels, novellas, and autobiographical works about his exile period.
His works include Kinder der Traume (1919); Das Satansspiel vom Gottlichen Marquis (1928); Gesammelte Werke (vol. 1 Munich, Vienna, 1964; vol. 6, Hamburg, Duesseldorf, 1968), and his great autobiographical trilogy “Z.Z”. Das Ist die Zwischenzeit, Unsentimentale Reise, and Das Beleid.
Drach was a member of Union of German Dramatists (1929-1936); Society for Broadcasting Rights (1937-1938); P.E.N. Club (Publicists, Essayists and Novelists) of Lower Austria (president in 1964); and of German Writers Association (1970). He received the Cultural Prize for Poetry from the City of Vienna (1972), and Cultural Prize for Poetry from the Government of Lower Austria (1975).
During his later years Drach lived in Moedling, near Vienna.