Passage: Herbert Nachbar was the son of a fisherman in Greifswald, Province of Pomerania.  From 1936 to 1940, he attended the Volksschule in Wolgast subsequently the Lehrerbildungsanstalt in Pasewalk.  After a short time as an electrician, he went to school as the Oberschule in Rostock where he took his Abitur.  Nachbar began a study of Medicine at the Humboldt University of Berlin which he broke off after two semesters.  He worked as a local reporter and contributing editor to different East Berlin newspapers until 1953 after which as a literary editor for the Aufbau-Verlag.  From 1957 he was a freelance writer.  Nachbar lived in several towns: until 1959 on the island of Ummanz from the 1960 to 1963 in East Berlin, from 1963 to 1969 in Graal-Müritz as well as again in East Berlin after 1969.  From 1968, he was head dramaturg at the Volkstheater in Rostock and later at the East German Television in Berlin.  His death in East Berlin was the result of a difficult disease which had forced him to become a wheelchair user since 1978.

Question: When did he become a freelancer?
1957