Wolfgang Borchert rose to instant fame when the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk broadcast his radio play Draußen vor der Tür (Outside the Door; translated as "The Man Outside," 1952) on 13 February 1947. Suddenly there seemed to be a literary spokesman for the generation of returning soldiers who were suffering from the aftermath of World War II and the rejection of "normal" society. Borchert was identified with Trümmerliteratur, postwar literature describing life in the ruins. He was quite ill at the time and died on 20 November of the same year, one day before the first stage performance of his play in Hamburg.

The legend of his dramatic life and early death added to his popularity, but literary criticism was mostly hostile. Hans Egon Holthusen called the play "saurer Kitsch" (sour kitsch). A new image of Borchert began to emerge in 1962 when Peter Rühmkorf published Die...