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Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre and the Verfremdungseffekt.
entertainment · German playwright and poet (1898–1956) · playwright · lyricist · screenwriter · theatre director · poet · librettist · literary critic · writer · film director · director · also Bertolt Brecht, Berŭtʻoltʻŭ Bŭrehitʻŭ, Pertōl Pirekcṭ, Mpertolt Mprecht, Pu-lai-hsi-tʻe, Pertōlṭ Pirekcṭ
Born 10 February 1898 · Died 14 August 1956 · Q38757
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We must tell the truth about evil conditions to those for whom the conditions are worst, and we must also learn the truth from them. We must address not only people who hold certain views, but people who, because of their situation, should hold these views....Even the hangmen can be addressed when the payment for hanging stops, or when the work becomes too dangerous.
History will pay its respects to the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about the speed of socialist construction will lead to a viewing and safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I must assure you of my allegiance to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
“We must tell the truth about evil conditions to those for whom the conditions are worst, and we must also learn the truth from them. We must address not only people who hold certain views, but people who, because of their situation, should hold these views....Even the hangmen can be addressed when the payment for hanging stops, or when the work becomes too dangerous.”
“History will pay its respects to the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about the speed of socialist construction will lead to a viewing and safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I must assure you of my allegiance to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.”
“stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them”
“s lifetime. In the best-known of them,”
“would in many ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre”
Crónica Digital: A 70 años de su partida: el legado imperecedero de Bertolt Brecht
TheWire.in: Bertolt Brecht and the Pathologies of Fascism
HolaNews: Se cumplen 70 años de la muerte de Bertolt Brecht
Elplural.com: Bertolt Brecht: perseguido por Hitler, interrogado en Estados Unidos y revolucionario del teatro
Clarin.com: Setenta años sin Bertolt Brecht: el dramaturgo que quería que el público pensara
La Razón: 70 años sin Bertolt Brecht, el dramaturgo que cambió para siempre la forma de mirar el teatro
Mshale: Mandelay Song (Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht) — Live At Deelehaus, Paderborn | Mandelay Project Federico Valverde (78wWkI4fTC)
BroadwayWorld: Bertolt Brecht
The Guardian: Raves, Brecht and re-enacting Diana’s funeral: the White Hotel bows out as the north’s bravest music venue
CounterPunch: Bertolt Brecht (and Me)
New Republic: The Surprisingly Erotic Poetry of Bertolt Brecht
The New Criterion: Bertolt Brecht’s Marie-Antoinettism
The Guardian: Bertolt Brecht's poems to 'one of his great loves' come to fervent life
BBC: Bertolt Brecht – a brief background
“Writing the Truth: Five Difficulties,”
Died 1956-08-14.
“Kto nie zna prawdy, ten jest tylko głupcem. Ale kto ją zna i nazywa kłamstwem, ten jest zbrodniarzem.”
“Variant translation: There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are men who struggle for a year and they are better. There are men who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives: These are the indispensable ones.”
“Ci, którzy nie posuwają naprzód żadnego życia poza swoim własnym, żyją nieciekawie.”
“Wer kämpft, kann verlieren. Wer nicht kämpft, hat schon verloren. (niem.)”
“Bałagan uratował już życie tysiącom ludzi. W czasie wojny wystarczyło nieraz najmniejsze odchylenie od rozkazu, aby człowiek uszedł z życiem.”
“Opis: o powstaniu robotniczym w NRD przeciw władzom komunistycznym, które wybuchło w czerwcu 1953.”
Describes a badly diseased heart, enlarged to the left with a protruding aortic knob and with seriously impaired pumping
Brecht issued a recantation of his apparent suppression of poetry in his plays with a note titled On Poetry and Virtuosity
And his overseas bank accounts from which he received valuable hard currency remittances
Moved to East Berlin and established his theatre company there, the Berliner Ensemble
Was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for alleged Communist Party affiliations
As a Wehrmacht conscript on the Eastern Front
Brecht fled his home country, initially to Scandinavia
Career landmark: Nazi book burnings.
Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding
“The Modern Theatre Is the Epic Theatre”
In Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting
Discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Brecht's own Drums in the Night, but the productions did not materialize
Brecht became part of the "dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for the group's "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre
A series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann was closely associated with writing them
In Mannheim the artistic exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit ("New Objectivity") had given its name to the new post-Expressionist movement in the German arts
Brecht saw two films which influenced him significantly: Chaplin's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin
His publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home (Hauspostille, eventually published in January 1927)
Where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a lifelong collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler
Brecht worked with the novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's Edward II that proved to be a milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical
Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927)
Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a short slapstick film, Mysteries of a Barbershop, directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin
While still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of
Studied at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (1917–1921).
For writing an essay in response to the line Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori from the Roman poet Horace, calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap propaganda for a specific purpose") and arguing that only an empty-headed p
Awarded star on Playwrights' Sidewalk.
Awarded International Stalin Prize for Peace.
Awarded National Prize of East Germany.
Born 1898-02-10.