Wednesday, June 17, 2020

A Poem by Bert Brecht on the 17 June 1953 Uprising

https://mronline.org/2006/08/14/brecht140806-html/

    Brecht could criticize the German Democratic Republic because of his fame, Austrian citizenship, and his moving to East Berlin voluntarily. A few years back I participated in a fascinating Goethe-Institut seminar Literarisches Berlin/Literary Berlin. We toured his house and attended a reading there. In addition, we saw his grave in the adjacent Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery, which has the graves of numerous leading figures from all walks of German life.
  
    When I was studying German as both an undergraduate and a graduate student in the 1970s, Brecht was rather grudgingly in the course of study. German departments then were conservative in both the curriculum and politics.  That Brecht maintained Austrian citizenship and had a Swiss bank account proved to some that he was a hypocrite. The Communists offered to build a theater for him, so he went East. After that, he wrote little but mentored future playwrights and actors. 

     I prefer to let this work speak for itself. While I do not consider myself a Brecht expert, I am comfortable with that. A link to his life: 

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht#Cold_War_and_final_years_in_East_Germany_(1945%E2%80%931956)


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