The international success of In der Sache J. Robert Oppenheimer (1964; translated as In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1967) made Heinar Kipphardt a highly regarded writer of documentary drama. In his works in this genre Kipphardt used court records and contemporary social commentaries to convey the substance and ambience of recent judicial hearings of a political nature. His portrayals of persons and circumstances are not meant to be totally objective but to reflect the playwright's own sociopolitical perspective.

Heinrich Mauritius Kipphardt, called Heinar by his parents, was born on 8 March 1922 in Heidersdorf, Silesia (now part of Poland), to Heinrich Kipphardt, a dentist, and Elfriede Kaufmann Kipphardt, a telephone operator. Kipphardt's father's practice was located in neighboring Gnadenfrei, the scene of workers' strikes against industrial mechanization. The boy had a close relationship with his maternal grandmother, who was fond of singing and playing the piano. Within the family he...