Happy birthday to Bertolt Brecht (10 February 1898–14 August 1956), who survived persecution by both the Nazis and the House Committee on Un-American Activities (above, some of his testimony therein).
In Germany, during the wonderfully decadent Weimar Era, Brecht wrote The Threepenny Opera (best known today through Bobby Darin’s denatured rendering of “Mack the Knife”) and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (also best known for another’s rendition of one of its songs, in this case “The Alabama Song” as sung by The Doors), among other works.
Once Hitler’s rise led to his relocation to America (after a brief stint in Scandinavia), he wrote anti-Nazi/anti-Fascist/anti-war plays such as Mother Courage and her Children, The Life of Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and a host of other plays.
His sole foray into Hollywood was as screenwriter for the extraordinary film Hangmen Also Die!, a loose fictionalization of the Prague Underground’s assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Reich Protector of Czechoslovakia, known as “The Hangman of Prague.”
Shortly after his testimony in front of HUAC, he left America for Europe and spent the remainder of his days living in East Germany…
Below, Brecht in 1931, and a 1988 East German stamp honoring him and his play, The Life of Galileo:
