February 10, 1898 [Augsburg, Germany] – August 14, 1956 [East Berlin, Germany]
Brecht, one of the most renowned playwrights and poets of the 20th Century, was born in Augsburg, Germany. His first play, Baal, was staged in 1919; he went on to write dozens more, including the collaboration with Kurt Weil, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera, 1928), Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and her Children, 1939) and Leben des Galilei (Life of Galileo, first staged in Hollywood with Charles Laughton in 1947). Brecht and his family fled Berlin in 1933 after the burning of the Reichstag and settled in Denmark, then moved to Stockholm, Sweden in 1939. He moves to Los Angeles (travelling through Moscow and Vladivostok) in 1941 where he meets other German exiles including Arnold Schönberg, Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Thomas Mann. He works on the screenplay for Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die. Brecht was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC in September 1947 and testified in English, making wry jokes, poking fun at his translators, and commenting on his own poor command of English. He left for Europe the next day, setting in East Berlin in 1949.
