Central to Luckacs' theories was the importance of the quest for individual identity, which he felt was not portrayed by socialist realism.
He rejected the work of many authors, including Willi Bredel, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Ernst Ottwalt for reasons pertaining to the development of characters.
The typical biography for an exile author of this time included an active interest in the defense of the Weimar Republic and democratic power against state authority, followed by exile during the time of National Socialism and then return to the Soviet Occupation Zone to support through their literature the development of an antifascist-democratic reform.
Culture and art were to reflect the ideals and values of socialism and to function as a means of educating the masses, an idea known as socialist realism.
Aufbauliteratur was replaced by increasingly critical Ankunftsliteratur (literally: arrival literature) which was much less ideological but practical and realistic out of which the later artistic opposition to the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) grew, although still aligned with the SED's cultural and political program.
"The enthusiastic reception, republishing, and reworking of romantic authors by East German writers during the 1970s is in part motivated by the numerous parallels between the situations of the Germans in the Napoleonic era and in the GDR, both suffering under political and social suppression and the loss of autonomy, in particular the suppression of free speech.