[1] His farces, parables, one-act-plays and adaptations were inspired by the theatre of the absurd and the works of Ionesco, Giraudoux and Beckett.
His monumental drama Merlin oder das wüste Land, which was premiered in 1981 in Düsseldorf, has been compared to Goethe's Faust.
[2] Conscripted into the German army as a pupil at the age of 17, he was soon captured and incarcerated as a prisoner of war.
By the time he was released from war captivity, his birthplace had become part of the Soviet sector of Germany.
[3][4] Through the 1950s he wrote his first plays for the marionette theatre Das Kleine Spiel, (some together with composer Wilhelm Killmayer).