The plot, as far as it is consistent, centers around a group of soldiers who desert from the First World War and hide out in the German city Mülheim, waiting for a revolution; among them Johann Fatzer.
"[8] Brecht not only displays a significant shift with the Fatzer text from producing texts/drama as something to be put before an audience to using it as a means for the elaboration of meaning for himself: in the light of acquiring the concepts of materialistic dialectic for himself, he goes a step further in (rudimentary) laying this out as a general approach to theatrical elaboration as an ongoing process, emancipated from the delivery of productions, veering towards a concept of theatre characterized by participation rather than consumption.
Heiner Müller, who played a central role in recognizing the Fatzer text as a major drama of the 20th century, interpreted this latest effort as a deliberate lowering of standards in an attempt to "clear out the bodies form the cellars, while the houses are built on the same foundations", identified as a crucial dilemma of GDR cultural politics.
He holds against this the aesthetic quality and experimental possibilities of the Fatzer text, which, in its unresolvedness is closer to Kafka's way of writing under the "pressure of experience".
The first German publication of the text as an overall play in book form appeared in 1994 as a stage version produced by Heiner Müller for the production of the Deutsche Schauspielhaus in Hamburg in 1978.
Aesthetically they range from rather traditional stage productions in the style of the Epic Theatre[16] to approaches which reflect Brecht's experimental theories in-depth both for publicly accessible productions[17] and university research projects examining possibilities of integrating theatrical praxis and theory as suggested by Brecht's approach to the Fatzer text.