Bertolt Brecht

German poet, playwright, theatre director (1898-1956)

1898   -   1956

country of citizenship: German Empire, German Democratic Republic, Weimar Republic, Austria
languages spoken, written or signed: German
educated at: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
occupation: playwright, lyricist, screenwriter, theatrical director, poet, librettist, literary critic, writer, author, film director, director
award received: National Prize of East Germany, International Lenin Prize for Peace

Ebooks: on Wikisource

Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt 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 Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt. During the Nazi Germany period, Brecht fled his home country, first to Scandinavia, and during World War II to the United States, where he was surveilled by the FBI. After the war he was subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Returning to East Berlin after the war, he established the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel.
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