Bertolt Brecht

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Emil Berthold Brecht (born January 1898-August 1956), also known as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre critic, playwright, and poet.

He came of age in Munich and then went to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a lifelong friendship with composer Hanns Eisler.

He became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later referred to as "dialectical theatre") and the so-called V-effect, embeded in Marxist thought during this period.

He lived in exile during the Nazi period, first in Scandinavia and then in the United States during World War II.

He founded the Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel, returning to East Berlin after the war.

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Life and career

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as a child known as Eugen) was born in Augsburg, Germany, on February 10, 1898, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869-1939) and his wife Sophie (née Brezing (1871-1920). Brecht's mother was a devout Protestant and his father, a Roman Catholic (who had been refused a Protestant wedding). The modest house where he was born is now a Brecht Museum. His father worked at a paper mill before becoming the company's managing director in 1914. His maternal grandparents lived in the neighbor's house at Augsburg. Bertolt Brecht and his brother Walter were heavily influenced by them as a youth by Pietists and his grandmother.

Brecht knew the Bible, a belief that would have a lifelong effect on his writing, due to his grandmother's and his mother's influence. The "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his story emerged from her. Despite what his occasional attempt to claim paternal origins implied, Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class. Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a life-long creative relationship, was introduced to him at Augsburg's school. Neher created several of the scenes for Brecht's dramas and helped to establish their epic theater's distinctive visual iconography.

When Brecht was 16, I was in danger of being in World War II. Brecht, who was initially ecstatic, soon changed his mind about seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army." Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 for writing an essay referring to the Roman poet Horace's phrase "et decorum est pro patria mori" and asserting that only an empty-headed individual would be allowed to die for their country. Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute tutor at Brecht's academy, was only able to prevent his dismissal.

On his father's suggestion, Brecht tried to prevent being called into the army by exploiting a loophole that allowed medical students to be deferred. He enrolled in 1917 at Munich University, where he first registered for a medical degree. Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the youthful Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret actor Frank Wedekind, appeared in the drama.

Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre critique for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919). In the fall of 1918, Brecht was sent into military service, but only after being posted back to Augsburg as a medical officer in a military VD clinic, the war came a month later.

Frank Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a friendship in 1917) had a son, Frank. In 1920, Brecht's mother died. Frank died in 1943 while fighting for Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front.

Brecht appeared in a small part of Munich comedian Karl Valentin's political cabaret sometime in 1920 or 1921. Many visits to see Valentin perform in Brecht's diaries over the next two years have been documented. Valentin was compared by Brecht to Charlie Chaplin for his "complete rejection of imitationry and cheap psychology." Brecht named Valentin, Wedekind and Büchner as his "key influences" at the time, in his Messingkauf Dialogues years later:

Baal, Brecht's first full-length play, erupted in reaction to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, sparking a trend of experimental engagement that continued throughout his career, spawning a desire to rival another's (both their own and his own) throughout his career (as his numerous adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be inventive," he joked, "rewriting other people who have a challenge." In February 1919, Brecht produced Drums in the Night, his second major play.

Brecht was acquainted with numerous influential figures in Berlin's cultural scene between November 1921 and April 1922. Among them was playwright Arnolt Bronnen, with whom he formed the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company, which became a joint venture. Bertolt was the spelling of his first name, not Arnolt, in Brecht's case.

"When Brecht first lived in Munich, he changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced, Drums in the Night—"[he] has brought our time a new tone, a new melody, and a new vision." [...] It's a word you can imagine on your tongue, in your gums, your ear, and your spinal column.' In November, it was revealed that Brecht had been given the coveted Kleist Prize (intended for young writers and possibly Germany's most coveted literary award, before it was discontinued in 1932) for his first three plays (Bay, Drums in the Night, and In the Jungle, although at that time only Drums had been produced). The citation for the award stated that "[Brecht's] language is vivid without being explicitly poetic, symbolic, or literary without being concerned about literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his words are felt both physically and in the round." Marianne Zoff, a Viennese opera performer, married him last year. Hanne Hiob, the couple's daughter, who was born in March 1923, was a popular German actress.

In 1923, Brecht envisioned a scenario for what was to be a short slapstick film, Mysteries of a Barbershop, directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin. Despite a lack of success at the time, the product's technological innovation, as well as the subsequent success of several of its contributors has landed it as one of Germany's most popular films ever. In May, Brecht's In the Jungle premiered in Munich, which Engel also directed. Opening night was a "scandal"—a feature that would characterize many of his later productions during the Weimar Republic—in which Nazis screamed whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on stage.

Brecht (1924) collaborated with writer and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on a Brecht's Edward II revival that became a landmark in the city's early dramatic and dramatic history. Edward II of Brecht was his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he would adapt. He credited it with his first solo directorial debut and his idea of "epic theatre" as the source of his conception of "epic theatre." September, a job as assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater, at the time one of the world's best three or four theatres, brought him to Berlin.

Brecht's marriage to Zoff in 1923 began to break down (although they didn't divorce until 1927). Both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel were involved with Brecht's involvement. Stefan Brecht and Weigel's uncle, Stefan, was born in October 1924.

Brecht's role as dramaturg had a lot to inspire him but not so much work of his own. Shaw's Saint Joan, Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters (with the commedia dell'arte's improvisational approach in which the actors talked to the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author in his troupe of Berlin theatres. In October 1924, a new Brecht's third play, Jungle: Decline of a Family, opened at the Deutsches Theater, but it was not a success.

"Of Poor BB" is Brecht's most popular "transitional poem" at this moment. Elisabeth Hauptmann's publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home, which was eventually published in January 1927. After the publisher's commission ran out, she continued to work with him.

Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity"), a German arts exhibition opened in 1925 in Mannheim, had dubbed the nascent post-Expressionist movement. Brecht began to develop his Man Equals Man project, which would be the first product of "the 'Brecht group'"—the shifting group of acquaintances and collaborators on whom he consequently relied. Brecht's Brecht's work from this period as part of the Neue Sachlichkeit movement was largely influenced by this interconnected approach to artistic production, as well as elements of Brecht's writing and style of dramatic production. Willett and Manheim argue that the collective's work "reflected the cultural atmosphere of the middle 1920s."

In 1925, Brecht watched two films that had a major influence on him: Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Brecht compared Valentin to Chaplin, and the two of them in Man Equals Man provided Galy Gay models. Chaplin "would in some ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre's needs," Brecht later wrote. During Brecht's stay in the United States, they met several times and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux scheme, which may have been influenced by Brecht.

Under Brecht's name in 1926, a series of short stories was published, but Hauptmann was closely associated with writing them. Following the success of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt last year, Brecht began researching Marxism and socialism in earnest, under the guidance of Hauptmann. "I knew my plays" when I read Marx's Capital," a Brecht note shows. Marx continued to be "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across." A number of agitprop plays were inspired by the events in USSR Brecht, celebrating the bolshevik collectivism (replacement of each member of the group in Man Equals Man) and red terror (The Decision).

Brecht was a member of Erwin Piscator's first company's "dramaturgical company" in 1927, which was intended to address the difficulty of finding new plays for its "epic, political, conflictual, documentary theatre." During the period of the latter's most influential productions, Hoppla, We're Alive, Brecht worked with Piscator. Toller, Rasputin, The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik, and Konjunktur by Lania. Brecht's most notable contribution to the completion of the unfinished episodic comic book Schweik, which he later described as a "montage from the novel." Brecht's productions influenced his Brecht's theories of stage and design, as well as alerting him to the dangers offered to the "epic" playwright by stage technology advancement (particularly projections). Willett says, "Brecht's piscator was pretty straightforward, and he acknowledged it."

In his unfinished project Joe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in its program for the 1927–28 season), Brecht was struggling at the time with the challenge of how to dramatize the complex economic ties of modern capitalism. But it wasn't until his Saint Joan of the Stockyards (written between 1929 and 1931) that Brecht solved it, that it wasn't until it was discovered. Julius Caesar and Brecht's Own Drums appeared in 1928, but the performances did not materialize.

Kurt Weill, the young composer, was also 1927 for the first time. Together, they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny project, following the biblical Cities of the Plain's thematic scheme, but it was not rendered in terms of Neue Sachlichkeit's Amerikanismus, which had informed Brecht's previous work. In July, they produced The Little Mahagonny for a music festival as part of Weill's "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. Caspar Neher came as a key player in the collaborative effort, with words, music, and photographs that were related to one another from the start. In Brecht's newly developed principle of "separation of the elements," which he first articulated in "The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre" (1930), the model for their mutual articulation lay. The idea, a variety of montage, was suggested by Brecht for "the great battle for supremacy of words, music, and production" by depicting them as self-contained, independent works of art that exhibit attitudes toward one another.

Barbara Brecht, the bride's daughter, was born shortly after the wedding in 1930. She also became a singer and would later share the copyrights of Brecht's works with her siblings.

Brecht formed a writing group that became popular and wealthy. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau, and others all worked with Brecht and produced the numerous teaching plays, which sought to create a new dramaturgy for participants rather than passive viewers. They introduced themselves to a large workforce arts group that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s and Austria. Saint Joan of the Stockyards, Brecht's first great play, portrays the financial transaction drama as well as financial transactions.

This group based John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, with Brecht's lyrics set to music by Kurt Weill. It was renamed The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper), Berlin's most popular hit and a resurgenting presence on the international stage. One of the Church's most famous lines emphasized the hypocrisy of conventional morality, which was carried out by the Church in the face of working-class hunger and privation: he said it.

The success of The Threepenny Opera was followed by a tumultuous happy ending. It was both a personal and business loss. The book was ostensibly written by Dorothy Lane (now known as Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator) at the time. The song texts were only issued by Brecht, who claimed authorship of the songs. Brecht would later use elements of Happy End as the germ for his Saint Joan of the Stockyards, a play that will never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. Weill's score on "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny" were two of Brecht/Weill's most popular Brecht/Weill hits.

When the masterpiece of Brecht-Weill's Rise and Fall of Mahagonny, 1929, appeared in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience screaming. The Mahagonny opera, which was a triumphant triumph, would premiere in Berlin later this year.

Brecht spent the last years of the Weimar period (1930-1933) in Berlin, Germany, working with his "collective" on the Lehrstücke. These were a group of plays fueled by morals, music, and Brecht's burgeoning epic theatre. The Lehrstücke was often aimed at educating employees on Socialist topics. Hanns Eisler scored the Measures Taken (Die Massnahmen). In addition,, Brecht co-wrote a script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human effects of mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. This enchanting film is known for its subtetive humor, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contributions. During the Weimar Republic's last years, it still gives a vivid glimpse of Berlin during the last years.

Brecht left Nazi Germany in February 1933, just after Hitler took power. After brief stints in Prague, Zurich, and Paris, He and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and author Karin Michalis to migrate to Denmark. On the tiny island of Thurs, which is close to the island of Funen, the family lived with Karin Michalis at her house. They bought their own house in Funen, Svendborg. This house, located in Svendborg's Skovsbo Strand 8, became the residence of the Brecht family for the next six years, where they often welcomed guests, including Walter Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau. During this time, Brecht travelled to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York, and London for various projects and collaborations.

In April 1939, he migrated to Stockholm, Sweden, where he remained for a year. After Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark, Brecht left Sweden for Helsinki, Finland, where he waited for his visa for the United States until May 3rd 1941. He wrote the script Mr Puntila and his Man Matti (Herr Puntila undida) with Hella Wuolijoki, with whom he lived in Marlebäck during this period.

Brecht became a well-known Exilliterature writer during the war years. In his most famous plays, he sang of the National Socialist and Fascist movements, Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Fear and Misery of the Third Reich, and several others.

Brecht co-wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang-directed film Hangmen Also Die! The book, which was loosely based on Reinhard Heydrich's assassination in 1942, was based on Heinrich Himmler's right-hand man in the SS and a chief Holocaust architect. Hanns Eisler was nominated for an Academy Award for his musical achievement. Lang, Brecht, and Eisler's cooperation, three prominent refugees from Nazi Germany, is an example of the influence that this generation of German exiles had on American culture.

Hangmen Also Die!

Russian emigrants in the West were greatly disappointed by Brecht's refusal to speak out in favor of Carola Neher, who died in a gulag prison in the USSR after being arrested during the 1936 purges.

By Hollywood studio owners and interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, Brecht was blacklisted during the Cold War and "Red Scare" during the Cold War and "Red Scare" during the Cold War. In September 1947, he was ordered to appear before the HUAC with nearly 41 other Hollywood writers, producers, and producers. Despite being one of 19 witnesses who had promised not to appear, Brecht eventually decided to testify. He later revealed that he had followed lawyers' instructions and that he did not want to postpone a scheduled trip to Europe. Brecht denied ever being a member of the Communist Party on October 30, 1947. Throughout the proceedings, he made wry jokes, highlighting his inability to speak English well and countless references to the translators present, who turned his German words into English ones, which made him unintelligible to himself. Karl Mundt, the vice chairman of the HUAC, thanked Brecht for his cooperation. The remaining witnesses, the so-called Hollywood Tendencies, refused to appear and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to appear before the commission sparked criticism, including allegations of betrayal. Brecht returned to Europe the day after his testimony on October 31.

For a year, he lived in Zurich, Switzerland. An adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone based on a translation by Hölderlin was staged in Chur, Brecht, in February 1948. It was published under the name Antigone Modell 1948, which was followed by an essay on the benefits of developing a "non-Aristotelian" style of theatre.

He moved to East Berlin in 1949 and founded the Berliner Ensemble, the Berliner Ensemble. He retained his Austrian nationality (granted in 1950) and overseas bank accounts, from which he gained valuable hard currency remittances. A Swiss company owned the copyrights to his writings.

Although Brecht was never a member of the Communist Party, the dissident communist Karl Korsch had been trained in Marxism. Both his aesthetic theory and theatrical performance inspired Brecht's interpretation of the Marxist dialectic. In 1954, Brecht was awarded the Stalin Peace Prize.

In his remaining years in East Berlin, Brecht produced only few plays, none of which were as well known as his previous ones. Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson, and Carl Weber committed himself to directing plays and showcasing the talents of the next generation of young directors and dramaturgs, including Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Weber. He wrote some of his most popular songs, including the "Buckow Elegies" at this time.

At first, Brecht seemed to endorse the steps taken by the East German government against the 1953 uprising in East Germany, which included the use of Soviet military forces. "History will pay its respects to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany's revolutionary impatience," Brecht wrote in a letter from the day of the uprising to SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht. The great discussion [change] among the masses over the speed of socialist construction will lead to a examination and protection of the socialist achievements. I must inform you that I have allegiance to Germany's Socialist Unity Party at this moment."

However, Brecht's subsequent reflection on those incidents was quite different — in one of the Elegies' "Die Solution" (The Solution), a disillusioned Brecht writes a few months later:

Brecht's involvement in protests and a flurry of condemnation of purges sparked condemnation from several contemporaries who had been disillusioned in communism long before. Fritz Raddatz, who lived in Brecht for a long time, described his experience as "broken," "escaping Stalinism's problem" and dismissing his associates' murder in the USSR, while remaining silent during show trials such as the Slánsk trial.

At the age of 58, Brecht died on August 14, 1956, after a heart attack. He is buried in the Dorotheenstadt Cemetery in Berlin's Mitte neighborhood, which was not overlooked by his apartment, which he shared with Helene Weigel.

Brecht contracted rheumatic fever as an infant, which culminated in an increased heart, life-long heart disease, and Sydenham's chorea, according to Stephen Parker, who reviewed Brecht's writings and unpublished medical records. A radiograph taken of Brecht in 1951 shows a bloated heart, stretched to the left with a protruding aortic knob, and severely impaired pumping. He was described as tense, with periods of squeezing his head or shaking his hands erratically, according to Brecht's coworkers. Sydenham's chorea can be attributed to his bodily stability, personality shifts, obsessive-compulsive behaviour, and hyperactivity, which corresponds to Brecht's behaviour. "What is amazing is his ability to transform abject physical dependence into peerless artistic vitality, arrhythmia that weaves poetry, chorea, and drama into dramatic choreography."

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