Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) War Has Been Given a Bad Name LINKS Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956): German Exiles in Southern California http://www.usc.edu/dept/Info/FML/Brecht.html Part of the Exiled German Intellectuals in Los Angeles site maintained by librarian Marje Schuetze-Coburn at the University of Southern California, the pages on Brecht include photos, biographical information about his life in Los Angeles, and a scholarly exhibit, Bertolt Brecht Turns 110, that includes many more archival materials and audio clips relating to Brecht and his work. BIOGRAPHY Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) Born in Augsburg, Germany, Brecht studied medicine at Munich University but soon turned to writing. Following the First World War, he wrote his first play, Baal (1918). His second play, Drums in the Night (1922), earned him Germany's premier literary prize. During the following years, his reputation grew through his work in the radically staged epic theater. His collaboration with the composer Kurt Weill in 1928 produced The Threepenny Opera, still his most popular work. His works during this period were shaped by his Marxist beliefs and his conviction that drama should help advance the interests of the working class. The Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 forced Brecht and his wife to flee to Scandinavia, where he wrote many poems and epic plays, among them Mother Courage and Her Children (1939), The Life of Galileo (1939), and The Good Woman of Setzuan (1940). In 1941, Brecht and his wife began a six-year stay in Hollywood, California, where he collaborated on several films and a volume of satirical songs, Hollywood Elegies (1942). By the late 1940s and early 1950s, Brecht's criticisms of American life and his well-known Marxism led to his being summoned to appear before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities. Within days of that celebrated appearance, Brecht was back in Europe. He settled in East Berlin in 1949, where he remained until his death.