FROM THE VERY BEGINNING of Heiner Muller's literary career, we can identify a concern with questions regarding democracy both within and outside the theater. His first major theatrical text, Der Lohndrücker, written in 1956–57 and published in the May 1957 edition of the East German literary monthly Neue Deutsche Literatur, is no exception. The play proved hugely successful, helping to launch the young Muller's career. Even two months before its publication, the dramaturgical staff at the Deutsches Theater indicated interest in staging the text, which, according to head dramaturge Heinar Kipphardt, demonstrated new dramatic talent. Work on Der Lohndrücker also gained Muller and his wife at that time, Inge Muller, the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1959, allegedly because of Walter Ulbricht's own initiative, before it began to feature on East German school syllabuses in 1961. While the text seemed to have initially gained a seal of institutional approval in the GDR, it examines the conditions surrounding the building of socialism in the GDR from a critical perspective, questioning the distinctly Soviet shape of East German socialism. The notion of Produktion (production) is key to unlocking the politics of Der Lohndrücker, as it sets out to harness the productive, interpretive capabilities of its individual audience members. And in turn, the generation of differing interpretations serves to produce what Muller calls “das neue Publikum” (L, 116; the new audience, TB, 28). This is a new democratic audience that differs from the official conception of the public in the GDR. As the text suggests, this was a public whose own myriad German histories had been silenced for the sake of the “Sovietization” of the young state and its political machinery.

The play focuses on a nationalized factory, or Volkseigener Betrieb (VEB), in the Soviet-occupied zone of Germany in 1948–49. Production is threatened as the kilns required for manufacturing materials are in desperate need of repair. One mason within the factory, Balke, rises to the challenge of repairing the kilns under dangerous conditions, and he develops a new technique for doing so, so as not to hinder the factory's productivity.