Bertolt Brecht was one of the most influential dramatists and poets of his era. He grew up in a bourgeois family in Augsburg. His father was an employee, later the director of the Augsburg Papierfabrik Haindl. After graduating early from secondary school in 1917, Brecht studied medicine, literature, and drama in Munich.
In fall 1918, he served as a medical orderly in an Augsburg barracks and was a member of the soldiers’ council. His anti-war song “The legend of the dead soldier” (1918) was influenced by these experiences and caused the national conservatives and ethnic-chauvinists to rise up against him. Later on, the National Socialists used it to justify his expulsion. The “Order of the Reich Interior Ministry” dated June 8, 1935, says: “His pathetic efforts, in which he, among other things, insults German front soldiers, demonstrate the lowest conviction” (Knopf, p. 46).
Brecht discontinued his studies and became a writer in 1921. He was awarded the famous Kleist Prize for his plays “Drums in the night” and “Baal” in 1922. He moved to Berlin in 1924 and grappled intensively with Marxist social theory. His “Three-Penny Opera” (1928-29) was produced two hundred and fifty times by 1933 and was one of the most successful plays of these years. Brecht married the Jewish actress Helene Weigel, who was a member of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) on April 10, 1930.
On February 28, 1933, the day after the Berlin Reichstag fire, Brecht and Weigel fled to Vienna via Prague. In the course of the book burning in May 1933, Brecht's works were banned. On June 8, 1935, his German citizenship was revoked. He spent his exile in Svendborg, Denmark until 1939, then 1939-40 in Sweden, and 1940-41 in Finland. In July 1941, he fled on a freighter via Vladivostock to California, where he lived in Santa Monica until October 1947.
On October 23, 1947, shortly before his return to Europe, he was called to testify as part of the pursuit of communists during the McCarthy era before the “House Un-American Activities Committee” in Washington. He returned to Europe on November 1, 1947. From Switzerland, Brecht, now stateless, requested that he be allowed into Austria or Germany, but the Western powers forbade this. In 1948, Brecht moved to the eastern part of Berlin, founded the “Berliner Ensemble,” and advocated for the establishment of a socialist German state. He was honored with the National Prize of the GDR 1st Class (1951) and the International Stalin Peace Prize (1954).
