Carl Zuckmayer (1890-1971) ranks with Bertolt Brecht and Gerhart Hauptmann as one of the most popular and significant German dramatists of the twentieth century; The Merry Vineyard (1925), marking the end of German Expressionism, his comedy The Captain of Koepenick (1931), a scathing satire of German militarism, and The Devil's General (1946), about a Nazi general and German resistance, are among the most frequently performed plays in German theatrical history. Wagener traces the development of Zuckmayer criticism from reviews to general assessments, from a biographical approach to the New Criticism and finally feminist criticism, paying particular attention tothe role of the Carl Zuckmayer Society in the critical discourse about this neglected author.
