Klaus Mann, son of Thomas Mann led a short, and chaotic life, which ended in an early death, at the age of 43, of an overdose of sleeping tablets. His homosexuality had already caused problems while he still lived in Germany during the rise of fascism, and in 1934 the Nazis stripped him of the German nationality, forcing him into exile. Traveling on Dutch and Czechoslovak identity papers for a few years, till he obtained US citizenship in 1943, having lived in the US with his parents since 1938. This floating existence, permanently financially dependent on his father, led to depression and suicidal tendencies, to which he succumbed in 1949.

Klaus Mann's work occupies a peculiar place in German literature, in many ways that of an outsider. During his stay in the United States, after 1938, Klaus Mann started writing and publishing short stories in English, which were at first polished by Christopher Isherwood. These stories take up a niche between the short stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Burroughs.

April, Nutzlos vertan consists of four short stories, "Wert der Ehre", "April, nutzlos vertan", "Speed" and "Hennessy mit drei Sternen". The first two stories were originally published in German. This occasional publication does not mention the source of the short stories, nor their original publication dates. It is likely that "Wert der Ehre" and "April, nutzlos vertan", the latter also known as "Der Liebende" appeared in Maskenscherz, which consists of the early short stories up until 1933. They reflect the experience of the 'lost generation' of the 1920. "April, nutzlos vertan" relates the despair of a young man's procrastination. Desperate to set himself and realize an ambitious plan to get started on a number of things to do, he finds that the month is gone, another month gone by without any achievement.

It is not clear whether "Speed" and "Hennessy mit drei Sternen" were published in Klaus Mann's life-time or whether they first appeared in Speed. Die Erzählungen aus dem Exil, a post-humous collection of the short stories written between 1933 - 1943, which first appeared in 1990, or whether they were written during Mann's ultimate years. The fact that they were written in English suggests they were written after 1938. In this publication, they were translated into German.

"Speed" is the longest of the four stories. It is the story of two drug addicts who latch themselves onto an immigrant, like a pair of leeches, and drain on him for money to finance their addiction. Fear of getting into trouble with immigration, the immigrant, Mr Kroll, refrains from going to the police, allowing the two addicts to keep coming back for loans that are never repaid with ever more ludicrous excuses as it increasingly becomes clear that he is deceived.

"Speed" was written several years before Burroughs' Junky appeared in 1953. The origins of Klaus Mann's addiction can be traced to his experiments with morphine in late 1929, before becoming addicted to hashish following a trip to Morocco in 1930. His drug habit led to a severe addiction and dependence on heroin during the 1940s. ( )