THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS of political drama and the developments that have taken place in this field over the last two decades can be summarized as follows:

As the 1980s in West Germany saw a conservative turn in society and politics, and a feeling of inertia became stronger, playwrights reacted by advocating the cause of the lower classes, mostly through the new Volkstheater and postmodern pastiche. Moreover, the new social movements, such as the fight against the armament race and environmental pollution, debated issues that playwrights adapted for the stage and presented for discussion.

In the GDR, the increasingly rigid political structures in the 1980s provoked a series of theatrical responses, although it was difficult to avoid censorship, and plays were sometimes staged after a delay of several years. Using the veil of mythology, playwrights more or less directly attacked the clampdown on freedom of thought and speech.

In both decades, the Nazi past played an important role, yet with a difference. While West German playwrights focused directly on the Third Reich in the 1980s by putting historical characters on stage, the play-wrights of the united Germany of the 1990s looked at the disastrous consequences of the upsurge of right-wing violence on the streets, which playwrights such as Franz Xaver Kroetz perceived to be grounded in a new nationalist pride.