Brecht, Bertolt b. February 10, l898;Augsburg, Bavaria d.August 14, 1956; East Berlin
Eminent German left-leaning playwright who became famous for his creation of the epic theater and who was exiled to the United States during World War II.
Born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, he was the son of Berthold and Sophie Brecht.
In 1914, his first poems appeared in the Augsburger Neusten Nachrichten (Augsburg Newest News) under the pseudonym Berthold Eugen. After graduation in 1917, Brecht began to study medicine in Munich, where he attended Arthur Kutschers’s seminars on theater. However, Brecht was forced by World War I to interrupt his studies. For a short time, he served as a medical orderly in Augsburg (1918). In the same year, Brecht wrote his first theatrical work, Baal. Shortly thereafter, Brecht began writing drama reviews for the Volkswillen in Munich. Altogether, twenty-seven reviews and polemics would appear between 1919 and 1921. Brecht also began work on the play Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night), for which he won the Kleist Prize. The play, produced in 1922, explores class conflict in the form of the Spartan Revolution. On November 4, Brecht married the opera singer Marianne Zoff and moved with her to Berlin. In 1923 Brecht’s play Im Dickicht der Stadte (In the Jungle of the Cities) opened in Munich.While in Berlin, Brecht worked with Carl Zuckmeyer as a dramaturge under Max Reinhardt in the Deutscher Theater. In December 1924, Brecht began writing the play Mann ist Mann (Man Equals Man). During this time, he also met and began to work together with Elisabeth Hauptmann. On September 25, 1926, Mann ist Mann premiered both in Darmstadt and Dusseldorf. Shortly thereafter, Brecht divorced Marianne Zoff. In 1927, Hauspostille (Manual of Piety), a collection of Brecht’s poems from the years 1915—1926, was published.
In 1928, Brecht began working with the composer Kurt Weill on the rewriting of John Gay’s play, Beggar's Opera.
Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), which opened on August 31 and was considered to be Brecht’s first major success. In the play, Brecht makes use of epic theater, which does not strive to make the audience identify with the characters. Instead, the play attempts to establish critical distance through a process of alienation. Through this alienation effect (Ver- fremdungseffekt), the audience awakens to a critical consciousness of society’s structures and the need for social change. On April 10, 1929, Brecht married Helene Weigel. In that same year, he began work on Das Badener Lehrstuck vom Einverstand- nis (The Baden Cantata of Consent), which premiered July 28 in Baden-Baden. The first concert production of Lind- bergflug (The Flight of Lindberg) took place in Berlin. Brecht’s opera, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny) premiered in Leipzig in 1930. During this time, Brecht began filming Kuhle Wampe. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Brecht and his family fled from Germany to Denmark.During his exile, Brecht began writing poetry that is almost exclusively antiFascist in tone. He also worked on various emigrant newspapers. In 1934, he began writing the Dreigroschenroman (Three Penny Novel). Two years later, Brecht was stripped of his German citizenship. In June 1935 he took part in the First International Writer’s Congress in Paris. At this time, he began working with Ruth Berlau. In 1937, Brecht wrote Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches (Fear and Misery of the Third Reich). On October 16, Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar (Seqora Carrar’s Rifles) premiered in Paris. Brecht also took part in the Second International Writer’s Congress. In 1938, Brecht finished Das Leben des Galilei (The Life of Galileo). He moved to Sweden in May 1939. A month later, a collection of Brecht’s poems, the Svendborger Gedichte (Svendborg Poems), was published. Brecht also began work on Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children) and Das Verhor des Lukullus (The Trial of Lucullus).
After the march of the Nazis into Denmark and Norway, Brecht fled to Finland in 1940, where he finished most of the work on Der guter Menschen von Sezuan (The Good Person of Szechwan). From there, Brecht finally moved to the United States.In 1941, Brecht began work on Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui). While in the United States, Brecht met many other German exiles living in Los Angeles, among them Thomas Mann and Theodor Adorno. He also met many Hollywood stars, such as Charles Chaplin and Fritz Lang, and wrote screenplays, including the Fritz Lang production, Hangmen Also Die (1943). Brecht also wrote Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (1944, The Caucasian Chalk Circle) and Schweyk im Zweiten Weltkrieg (1943, Schweyk in the Second World War). After Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed on August 6, 1945, Brecht altered the play Das Leben des Galilei. When the play first appeared in Denmark, Brecht presented Galileo as an independent scientist. However, in the American version, Galileo Galilei, Galileo’s scientific work appears as an instrument that serves only the government. In 1947, Brecht was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington. The next day, Brecht flew to Switzerland.
In 1948, Brecht settled in East Berlin, where his first postwar publication, Kalen- dergeschichten (Tales from the Calender), appeared. In 1949, Brecht and his wife established the Berliner Ensemble. Four years later, he was elected president of the German PEN Center. In the same year, his poetry cycle, Buckower Elegien (Buckow Elegies), appeared. Together with other intellectuals, Brecht helped found the Deutsche Akademie der Kunste (German Academy of the Arts). In May 1953, Brecht was elected president of the PEN
Center East and West. Two years later, he was awarded the Stalin Prize in Moscow.
Kerri Pierce
See also Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund; Intellectual Exile; Lang, Fritz; Mann, Thomas; Reinhardt, Max; Zuckmayer, Carl
References and Further Reading
Brecht, Bertolt. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. John Willet. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964.
Ewen, Frederic. Bertolt Brecht: His Life, His Art, and His Times. New York: Citadel Trade, 1967.
Fuegi, John. Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, According to Plan. Ed. Christopher Innes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.