Eugen Schönebeck was trained in East Germany to produce murals for propagandistic purposes. Skilled at reducing the human form to compartmentalized sections, Schönebeck is known for his expressionistic ink and graphite drawings, a selection of colorful paintings, and large-scale depictions of cultural figures all produced after the artist immigrated to West Berlin. Nonetheless, by 1966 Schönebeck had stopped painting entirely and formally exited the art world shortly thereafter. For limited exhibitions from that time onward, Schönebeck continued to make drawings that benefited from his technical aptitude in analyzing the human form.

Schönebeck's sketches from 1973 feature groups of military men in differing scales, profiles and orientations, joined in collage-like combinations. Some of the figures are depicted only to their neck or waists and don clothing of the Communist era, including fur hats and military caps with the Soviet star. In these drawings, Schönebeck oscillates freely between realistic depiction and abstraction in a manner that upends both the ideological divide between East and West Germany, and how approaches to creating art were deeply impacted by political motivations.