Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was born on February 10, 1898, in Augsburg, Germany. He attended the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he studied medicine.

A poet and essayist, he was most notably a playwright whose theatrical works portrayed social issues. Among his more than forty plays are the influential works Mother Courage and Her Children (1941) and The Threepenny Opera (1928), written with the composer Kurt Weill. Brecht challenged the genre by creating “epic theatre,” which was inspired by German Expressionism and Marxism, and portrayed nonlinear events in an objective manner that presented an argument meant to prompt social change. 

During World War II, he lived in exile, first for several years in Denmark. His collection of “Svenborg Poems” was published under the title Poems in Exile in Copenhagen in 1939. The book included the epigraph, “In the dark times / Will there also be singing? / Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times.”

Brecht moved to the United States in 1941 and worked in the film industry in Los Angeles. In 1947, he returned to Europe, ultimately settling in East Berlin. He died there on August 14, 1956.