Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Germany, on February 10, 1898. His study of philosophy and medicine at the Universität München was interrupted by military service during WWI. After the war, he attended Arthur Kutscher’s theater seminar and wrote his first play, Baal (1918). In 1922, his first play to be performed, Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night), opened in Munich and later at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Later, Brecht’s plays were staged at many German theaters and, in 1924, he moved to Berlin.

In 1927, Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill worked on the Mahagonny song cycle, the first of many collaborations. The following year, they produced Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), which became a Weimar-era theatrical sensation. Brecht also worked with composer Hanns Eisler on Die Massnahme (The Measures Taken, 1930) and, two years later, on the film production Kuhle Wampe, oder Wem gehört die Welt? (Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World?).

In 1929, Brecht married actress Helene Weigel. Together with their two children, they fled Nazi Germany in 1933. They first arrived in Switzerland, then settled in Denmark for a short while, moved to Sweden in 1939, then to Finland, and finally they made it to the United States in 1941. There, Brecht met many other German exiles, including Thomas Mann, Arnold Schönberg, Theodor Adorno and Fritz Lang, who asked him to co-author the script for Hangmen also Die. Brecht wrote some of his most important plays in exile, including Galileo (1938), Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and Her Children, 1939), Der gute Mensch von Sezuan (The Good Person of Szechwan, 1940), and Der kaukasische Kreidekreis (The Caucasian Chalk Circle, 1944).

In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) interrogated Brecht and accused him of having communist sympathies. He left the United States for Switzerland and eventually moved to East Berlin in 1948, where he and his wife founded the Berliner Ensemble (BE) in 1949. The BE performed Mother Courage and Her Children in Paris, during their first international tour in 1954. It was a sensation and catapulted Brecht into his position as one of the most important figures in 20th-century theater.

Brecht’s plays have been adapted to film by prolific film directors, including Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Vsevolod Putovkin, H. Jürgen Syberg, Volker Schlöndorff and Alberto Calvacanti. Brecht himself collaborated on several film productions: Mysterien eines Frisiersalons (Mysteries of a Barbershop, 1923, co-director., co-script), Kuhle Wampe oder Wem gehört die Welt? (Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World?, 1932, co-script), Pagliacci (1936, co-scenario) and Lied der Ströme (The Song of the Rivers, 1953, lyrics).

Bertolt Brecht died on August 14, 1956.

Source: University of Massachusetts - DEFA Film Library.

Plays included in this project:

- The Threepenny Opera.