[1] Between 1949 and 1961, the East German communist party (SED) was keen to establish its newly founded "proletarians' and peasants' state", in a program called Aufbau des Sozialismus which involved a promotion of Marxist-Leninist ideology not only in economic but more so social means dominated by literature (Aufbauliteratur).
[2] The key political events that frame the historical dimension of Aufbauliteratur are unusually clearly: Despite these marking events, the development of the SED's ideology and its tendency to use literature to promote this have emerged much earlier under Soviet occupation – and East German literature not immediately turned away from Aufbauliteratur to move on to Ankunftsliteratur, as historical processes are rather fluid.
[5] This attracted leftist writers returning from exile to settle in the GDR, and provided ideological framework which believing in meant cutting short today to gain a better world tomorrow (i.e. to justify tight control).
This focus resulted in "cultural poverty"[4] without artistic liberty or opportunity for a critical conversation in the arts – yet in its early years didn't derogate plenty of writers' enthusiasm for Marxism-Leninism.
As the SED drew its claim to power from a self-perception as the sole "organisation of proletarians",[8] it also held a monopoly over cultural and political questions – as representing the workers' views.
[13] Literature was to consolidate the single ruling party, the SED, as "conscious advance of the working class"[9] in its foundation myth of the "first workers' and peasants' state on German soil".