Politische Dramaturgien im geteilten Berlin: Soziale Imaginationen bei Erwin Piscator und Heiner Muller um 1960

In their beginnings, the German Democratic Republic as well as the Federal Republic of Germany defined themselves as opposites of their predecessor, the Third Reich. But in reality their definition never came true. In the GDR , Heiner Mueller discussed the ongoing existence of the past. He exposed the new democratic system as a dream and thus subtly criticized the governmental opportunism which turned its original ideas in the opposite direction. This has not been completely realized because of initial politically-motivated labelling which later turned into set literary science. This is remedied in this book. In the Federal Republic of Germany , Erwin Piscator emphasized the ongoing existence of social structures of the national socialism with his productions of plays by Hochhuth, Weiss and Kipphardt. The classification of these plays with the background of the historical context of GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany reveals surprising parallels. It is obvious that the similar reactions of the politics in East and West Germany were produced by the same mechanism. This mechanism was the reference to the self-deception of both young states which claimed that they had created a different social community. It contains German text.