Brecht fled Nazi Germany in February 1933, and his works were thrown into the flames shortly thereafter during the book burnings of 1933. His plays attacked German middle-class society, drew on Marxist principles, and criticized Nazism. He became more critical of the Weimar Republic and wrote political films and plays which were banned by the government. In Berlin he collaborated with composer Kurt Weill, most famously on Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera, 1928).Īlthough Bertolt Brecht never joined the Communist party, he began to study the works of Karl Marx in the late 1920s and sympathized with the Communist cause. Bertolt Brecht was appointed consultant for Max Reinhardt's German Theater. He moved to Berlin in 1924 in order to pursue his career in earnest. The Threepenny Opera The sly melodies of composer Kurt Weill and the daring of dramatist Bertolt Brecht come together on-screen under the direction of German auteur G. Brecht's first success came with the 1922 production of Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night) in Munich. Leading German dramatist Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), the son of a Protestant mother and Catholic father, was born into a middle-class Bavarian family. Ist der Kommunismus exklusiv? (Is Communism Exclusive?), Bertolt Brecht, 1932 Which of Bertolt Brecht's Works were Burned?Īll works published before May 1933 Who was Bertolt Brecht? Today goodness means where the bare self-defense of the great masses becomes the final battle for the position of command, the destruction of which makes goodness impossible. Yet as Bertolt Brecht introduces these assorted denizens of the London underworld, he refrains from casting judgement upon their survival tactics, even when those tactics are unfair or immoral. He who is a wolf to man, is no man, but rather a wolf. The Threepenny Opera is full of greedy, corrupt charactersmen and women who lie, steal, cheat, and bribe their way through the world. It is understandable that they defend themselves, but they defend robbery and privileges, and to understand here does not mean to excuse as well. Their point of view is not just: their point of view is injustice.

Our opponents are the opponents of mankind.

The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht