The German composer, Heinz Benker, received instruction in violin from age 7. At age 9 he he discovered the concert flute concerto by himself. At the age of 10 he began playing the piano and organ, cello and double bass to follow. The first attempts at composition were at age 12 with Domkapellmeister Franz Hofer. After graduation in 1940 in Freising, he went into the labor service on the Rhine, then in the military service in the Afrika Korps (1941-1943) and became a prisoner of war in Africa and America (founder and director of a men’s choir, the prisoners' orchestra in Louisiana, and a jazz band).