Florian Havemann was born in 1952 in East Berlin. He is the son of the GDR dissident Robert Havemann. In 1968 Florian Havemann was arrested while protesting the brutal crackdown on the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. In 1971 he fled to the West, where he found work as an electrician, lighting technician and as a janitor. In 1974 he started studying drama with Hermann van Harten. From 1974 until 1979 he studied graphic design and later on set design with Achim Freyer at the Berlin Academy of the Arts. In 1977 he staged an evening with texts by the Russian futurist Velimir Chlebnikow titled Auszüge aus den Tafeln des Schicksals. In 1978 he started working on a play about the nazi architect Albert Speer. In 1985 he founded a theatre lab. From 1986 on he worked as a cleaner. In 1989 he wrote a play based on the life of Rosa Luxemburg (Rosa). In 1999 he was appointed lay judge at the constitutional court of Brandenburg. In 2002 Havemann was running for parliament for the PDS of Saxony. From 2002 to 2009 he was working on a theatre project about politicians. From 2003 to 2011 he was co-editor of the online magazine Zeitschrift für unfertige Gedanken. In 2007, Suhrkamp published his book Havemann about his grandfather and father which created a massive scandal. From 2009 to 2013 he worked as personal advisor of the Linke politician Gregor Gysi. Since 2019 Havemann owns a gallery in Berlin, supported by German-American venture capitalist Albert Wenger.