Brecht, Bertolt ___ 1898-1956 ___ German ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, into a mixed Catholic/Protestant family. He was educated at Königliches Realgymnasium, and then enrolled as a medical student at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He never finished training as a doctor but did do some military service as a medical orderly. He wrote his first play in 1918, during the Bavarian revolutionary turmoil, but it was not produced until 1923. In 1919, he joined the Independent Social Democratic party and became friends with the writer Lion Feuchtwanger. In consequence of a brief affair, Brecht's son Frank was born. In 1922, Brecht married the actress Marianne Zoff. Two years later, he was appointed a consultant at Max Reinhardt's Deutches Theater in Berlin. In 1928, he was married a second time, to Helen Waigel. The same year he wrote 'The Threepenny Opera' with Kurt Weill. It was translated and staged in the US in 1933. Already in the mid-1920s, Brecht had been studying Marxism, and this interest led him to write several political dramas such as 'Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny', also with Weill. In fear of Hitler, Brecht fled from Germany in 1933, first to Scandinavia then to California, writing poems and plays all the while. His famous plays include 'Galileo', 'Mother Courage and Her Children' and 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle'. In 1948, Brecht returned to Germany, settled in East Berlin, and launched the celebrated Berliner Ensemble. In 1955, he received the Stalin Peace Prize.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1920-1922 1934-1955 ___ literary self love/sex theatre Denmark Sweden Finland Switzerland

WEB TEXT LINKS
a few pages
 

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Bertolt Brecht Archive

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Bertolt Brecht Journals, 1934-1955
Diaries 1920-1922
 

May 2005, September 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.