Born 125 years ago – A memoir of the life and work of Bertolt Brecht

There are people whose legacy makes them immortal and timeless. Her work can always be reinterpreted, her contributions shape the zeitgeist and pave the way for the future.

Such a person was Bertolt Brecht, who was born 125 years ago in Augsburg – and changed it afterwards. Here is an overview of the life and works of the playwright.

The career of Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was born Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht on February 10, 1898 in Augsburg. He published his first works in the school newspaper as a high school student. During World War I, Brecht wrote texts from the home front for the local newspaper.

After graduating from high school, he began studying medicine and philosophy in Munich, but quickly lost interest in the former. At that time he wrote his first drama “Baal”. Despite being deferred from military service, Brecht became a military nurse in 1918, where he continued to write poetry.

In 1919 his son Frank was born. In that year Brecht wrote the drama “Drums in the Night”. In the 1920s he lived in Berlin and Munich, while maintaining relationships with his son’s mother (Paula Banholzer) and the singer Marianne Zoff.

The first successes came in Munich: “Drums in the Night” premiered in 1922. “Baal” was also released. In 1922 he married Marianne Zoff and a year later his daughter Hanne Brecht was born. In the meantime, “Drums in the Night” was also performed in Berlin, as was the drama “In the Thicket of the Cities” in 1923, which was quickly canceled because Nazis disturbed the performances with stink bombs.

After that, Brecht tried his hand at being a theater director. In 1924 his son was born with Helene Weigel, with whom he had a secret affair in Berlin. In 1929 he married Helene. Daughter Barbara was born in 1930. Meanwhile, Brecht became a communist and wrote political works like Man is Man.

Bertolt Brecht in exile

In the 1930s Brecht lived in exile (in Prague, Vienna, Zurich, Svendborg):

• The Nazis stripped Brecht of his citizenship in 1935.
• In the 1940s he moved to the USA, where he was monitored by the FBI as an “enemy alien”. As a communist, the Americans suspected him, although Brecht was never a member of the Communist Party.
• In 1947 he was not allowed to enter the American occupation zone in West Germany.
• In 1948 Brecht managed to return to East Berlin.
• In 1949 he was denied a permanent residence in Switzerland.
• In 1950 Brecht received Austrian citizenship, lived briefly in Salzburg and left Austria without finishing the theater work he had started at the Salzburg Festival.

Bertolt Brecht at the theater

His wife Helene Weigel founded a theater company for Brecht: she took care of the bureaucracy, he the art. The company is now known as the Berliner Ensemble. The Cold War made their work difficult because the artists didn’t want to come to Berlin.

In the 1950s, Brecht managed the balancing act between his own ideas and the formalism requirements of the GDR. The state wanted to clearly differentiate itself from the West and restrict artistic freedom. Brecht’s idea of ​​’epic theatre’ (now known as ‘dialectic theatre’) was intended to make audiences think.

Brecht was willing to compromise and thus enjoyed success. In 1954 he was appointed to the artistic advisory board of the Ministry of Culture of the GDR and the formalism dispute came to an end. In the same year he received the “International Stalin Peace Prize” and was appointed Vice President of the German Academy of Arts. He died of heart disease in 1955 at the age of 58.

To this day, Brecht’s plays are performed all over the world, his poems are read and his stage theories are taught. He has written 48 plays and more than 2300 poems.

Bertolt Brecht: The Most Famous Works

Brecht’s dramas

Brecht’s poems and prose