Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg, Germany and one of the country's most influential poets, playwrights and screenwriters. His most famous work was the musical "The Threepenny Opera" (with Kurt Weill), but his dramas such as "Mother Courage and Her Children" or "The Good Person of Sezuan" were equally successful.

Some of his most successful works are "Baal" (written in 1918), "The Treepenny Opera" (1928), "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagony" (1928/29), "Saint Joan of the Stockyards" (1929), "Fear and Misery in the Third Reich" (1935-1938), "Mother Courage and Her Children" (1939) and "The Good Person of Sezuan" (1940).

He had five children: Frank Brecht (b. 1919), (killed in action, November, 1943, in Russia), with Paula Banholzer; Hanne Brecht (b. 1923)(Hanne Hiob), with Marianne Zoff; Stefan Becht (b. 1924) and Barbara Berg (b. 1930), with Helene Weigel; and an infant who died shortly after birth in 1944, with Ruth Berlau.

Although he did not divorce Marianne Zoff until 1927, they separated in 1923. He got to know Helene Weigel shortly after their separation.

As he opposed the upcoming Nazi movement, he fled Germany in 1933 and finally emigrated to the United States.

After testifying before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, he left Hollywood and returned to Europe. He settled down in East Germany, where he founded the famous "Berliner Ensemble" and became the state's intellectual hero.

Was twice posthumously nominated for Broadway's Tony Award: in 1963, as author of Best Play nominee "Mother Courage and Her Children;" and in 1977, for his lyrics as part of a Best Score nomination for "Happy End," shared with Michael Feingold for his adaptation of Brecht's words.

His play, "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui," in a Minnesota Theatre Company production at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California was awarded the 1969 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for Distinguished Production.