Original subtitles

No! No! No! No!

Turn all the lights on!

No, there's no way around it. Turn on the brightest lights!

Delay the answers.

Talk to your translator.

You don't understand all questions. - That's correct, Sir.

Bertolt Brecht has been in exile for 14 years.

He's ordered to Washington's committee for un-American activities.

It's about the alleged infiltration of Hollywood's film industry.

Are you or have you ever been a member of the communist party?

None of the witnesses will answer that question.

It's against the fifth amendment

With a lawyer he prepares for the questioning.

What about the risk if I don't answer? - You'll go to prison for disregarding the committee.

His Danish co-worker and beloved Ruth Berlau helps him.

Smoke your cigar. The others are Americans.

You are stateless.

Most people won't take it badly if you'll be the only one to answer the question.

But I'm a guest in this country!

I don't want to enter a legal argument.

You've never been a member of the party. Never.

You don't have to lie about that.

The next day, Brecht left America to head to Europe.

In 1948 he received an invitation from the German Theatre in East Berlin in the Soviet sector of the city.

Brecht's play "Mother Courage and Her Children" should go on stage there.

Helene Weigel as the lead.

Direction would be done by Erich Engel and Brecht.

16 years.

And not only the houses were destroyed.

Premiere on the 11th of January 1949.

Will the people here want to watch us?

Did the breakdown cause enough thirst for something new?

They'll watch me and listen to me when I show them the story of the war and Courage.

That's unfamiliar for them.

Now you're nervous like before every premiere.

But it's an important, special premiere.

They won't run away.

I'll make sure of that.

After all, it's warmer inside than outside.

Look at the crowd! They haven't forgotten him.

If Brecht knew how much time you spent watching his journey on the news...

America, Switzerland and Austria.

And now he's here in the theatre.

Amongst the visitors are direction student Egon Monk and actress Isot Kilian.

The sutler Courage moves through the Thirty Years' War with her chariot.

Her destiny is the destiny of the simple person.

The sutler does business with war. She loses everything, even her children.

Many out there lost a lot as well. Now they feel like victims.

Go out there and show them how it happened.

It's their fault like it's Courage's.

No mercy! Maybe they'll understand that there's another way.

Thanks.

Like all good things, war is hard to handle in the beginning.

Once it flourishes, it's tough.

The people then recoil from peace as the dicers do from stopping.

They'd have to count how much they lost.

But first they recoil from war.

When the play begins, before Courage's cart rolls in, the recruiter talks about war and business...

...in a cynical and funny way that is completely unusual for me.

I realised that one can talk about sacred goods like the nation and the life of the nation like that.

That one can laugh about it.

My whole outlook on life has changed.

Besides that, the play was bone-deep. I had never seen theatre like that.

The snaw's aw gone...

The deid lie deid.

But you that haven't died as yet...

...the powers that be, they still do need.

Wi no one sausage for to eat...

...yer squaddie'll fight till he faws deid

But how does yer squaddie march tae fight...

...in scabby boots that's faur too tight?

And I told myself: You have to get to him!

Brecht decided to move from Switzerland to the Soviet sector in Berlin.

He moved into a mansion at Weissensee.

Wait! Wait! Wait!

Jesus! - Yes.

It was the right place for his new beginning.

On the right side of history at the right moment.

And here was a state-funded ensemble with which he could try out his plays.

First he was a permanent guest in the German Theatre.

But he hoped for his own theatre.

The best one would be the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

It's exhausting to be evil.

Where he celebrated a global success with his Threepenny Opera

Let's unpack the flight luggage.

The suitcases were always on top of the cupboard.

For the next flight.

Galilei!

He'll have to wait a little longer.

Carrar, Puntila, Chalk Circle.

How much time do I have left?

Who will help us? We won't make it on our own.

They'll come to you.

As if they had waited whether Brecht still exists.

The old ones who survived, the friends like Cas and Jhering.

And the young people who speak up now.

Those who aren't ruined by Göring's kitsch theatre.

And Neher will come from Zurich for Puntila.

And Lutz from Basel also promised me to come.

Dear audience, the fight is tough, but the present is already coming up.

She's so young.

I'll have to take care of her.

Of everything!

Nothing is there.

Helli! - Yes! Yes! Yes!

Berlau is in front of the door. Her suitcase ended up in our luggage.

Please don't raise her hopes again.

She's supposed to live here and work in the ensemble. I promised that.

In America she thought you'd marry her.

You know what I mean.

Your suitcase. - Brecht is here!

Brecht is exhausted, he needs to rest.

I'll work with him.

Yes, you can take pictures for us. - And document the plays for the model books.

You can't even typewrite a text without mistakes.

And you, Helli, wanted to typewrite in Denmark yourself.

Just because of Grete Steffin and Brecht.

Brecht!

You had such arms back then. Everything was bandaged.

And I was promised the direction as well.

Brecht!

We're back in Germany, not in Denmark anymore.

You were strangers in Skovbostrand back then. In exile.

I was useful for you then.

Because of the theatre, visas, the car and the special food for Brecht.

You had the money.

I left my husband Dr. Lund, for Brecht.

Brecht gave me this ring.

On the way. Sweden, Finland and America.

I was always supposed to stay with him. Helli, Brecht loves me.

And I'm his wife.

Brecht!

Brecht! - Ruth, be reasonable.

Reasonable?

Brecht is always about reasonability!

You promised we'd live together.

You'll keep working at the theatre. - With you!

We're in socialist Germany now, Ruth!

We're working on rebuilding a new society.

And when will our life start?

Come, I'll drive you home!

You wrote to your parents: As we drove from the zoo to Friedrichstreet, I thought I'd have to throw up.

You couldn't imagine.

Whole house facades have nothing behind them.

Gigantic bunkers stand up like sinking ships.

It didn't make me back off at all.

No, I accepted everything.

The worst could have happened and I still would have said:

Rather the worst and work at the theatre than live at home in peace.

Brecht works on Tutor from Lenz with his new Berlin ensemble.

A play from 1774.

Regine Lutz plays Gustchen.

I think God created me.

With... - With all creatures.

Regine, upgrade the flirting with the tutor a little more.

The noble girl doesn't care about religion class.

She's a bitch, she plays with him.

That's the other side of simple Gustchen. She loves playing with fire.

And the tutor can't fight back.

Brecht got his old friend Caspar Neher for the scenery and co-direction.

Hans! - Yes?

As a tutor you earn 60 Thalers per year.

So I'm poor. - No, you're a coward!

One could think it's your character, but it's society that makes you a coward.

Monk, show him where he stands on the social ladder.

Lessing as the librarian earns 600 Thalers per year.

The solo dancer of Dresden's opera: 6000 Thalers.

A chef: 10 Thalers. - And a herdswoman?

A herdswoman earns one Thaler per year.

And the king's whore?

Now, let's get to it!

The lover of August the Strong: 100,000 Thalers per year.

Yes! Look, Gaugler.

That shapes your character! That's why you bend the back for sovereignty.

But you bare your teeth at the same time.

Yes, the obedient servant. Obedient servant.

The devil shall get you! The devil shall get you!

The French beheaded their king. The Germans bent down.

No revolution.

The tutor would castrate himself to keep his job.

We dig that up. We want to change that.

Regine, the seduction once more, please!

I think God created me.

Yes, that's right!

And then I go back?

You'll flee!

The power relation changes. The student examines her teacher.

I think God created me.

If only he hadn't.

With... - With all creatures.

My flesh... - My flesh and my soul.

Also your flesh? - Eyes, ears and all limbs.

Reason and all senses were given to me.

What else? - He keeps them healthy.

Gives clothes and shoes, food and drinks, house and farm, wife and child, fields, cattle and all goods.

Yes! Now she's making fun of him!

She's a student. - She's a woman. And you...

You've had a filled seminal gland for weeks and months.

Don't forget that. The flesh, prohibited lust comes up in you!

A sexual life isn't designated for you in this world, you see?

But it's there!

You bitch!

I never had the ambition to make love with Brecht.

No, he smelled far too rough and bad.

You fight what's coming up in you.

The dilemma of a poor devil who has to decide between sex life and professional life.

Yes, that can't be claimed from us anymore.

He was a shy, quiet lover...

I wore my hair like that.

He slowly stroke over my hair.

But he always did it bodiless, as I call it.

It was always bodiless. So tenderly.

So carefully.

Lutz was a revelation for me back then.

When she lay in bed with the actor. The picture still is in my head.

And the success was incredible.

I looked into the letters.

We had 54 curtains and the one made of iron.

It's hard to imagine, but German theatres really freaked out back then.

I was a new teacher for math and I wrote his concluding verse on the wall:

Teachers and students of a new time, consider your servant bliss, so you can free yourselves from it.

Hello!

Back then in Skovsbostrand you showed me the stars.

There was Kassiopeia as well.

Look, our eyes meet up there, wherever we are.

That's what you said.

Then you kissed me.

Your eyes smiled.

Jeg elsker dig. I love you.

And that won't change in ten or twenty years.

Now you don't see me anymore.

My lap becomes cold from down there.

So cold!

It gets up into my head.

So cold!

Dear professor!

I didn't want to kill myself.

I drank strong vodka and played Ophelia, so Brecht would finally spend a night with me.

He had promised it for so long.

It was terrible. He sometimes went to Ruth to eat.

He always renewed her hopes. He couldn't break up.

And of course there was a lively erotic life.

Not only around Brecht, but overall.

There were many young people with different genders that lived.

And one of Brecht's views, although he only showed it with his presence...

...was that living was always worth it.

And that also accounted for himself.

Of course the ensemble knew that he wasn't just a poet, but also a man.

Maybe he also knew that being close to him made productive.

Even the women played differently.

Beautiful Miss, may I dare to ask whether I can take you home?

I'm neither Miss nor beautiful.

I can go home without you.

That's a beautiful child. She lit a fire inside me.

She's virtuous, yet snippy.

Again! Tell him!

Krumm!

When you suddenly walk to Gretchen, she can do a little movement, a flight somewhere!

Listen, Pohl! Students of the master class have to show up on time.

Also the lyricists. It's the money of the working class.

Sorry.

Rülicke was the girl for everything. But very likeable.

He had a short affair with her, but he shared her with Palitzsch.

Faust can't talk to the Miss. - He's a bit shy.

No, a bit horny.

I see.

Can I already show him that I like him?

That way I'd have a better connection to the next...

When the sentence...

...I'm neither Miss nor beautiful. Then you walk a few steps.

He had such a weird way of walking.

He tripped differently than any girl would do.

But he tripped in his brown suit with his hat pointing forward.

Then you stop!

And you look back.

Then he turned around jerkily.

Something happened, you understand? You can feel it.

It's an encounter that will change your life.

It wasn't the proletarian with Reichel.

It wasn't something he wanted for Gretchen, but for himself.

He wanted it for his bed.

A king was in Thule.

He had a golden cup.

His paramour got it on her deathbed.

He preferred the cup.

Finished it at every meal.

His eyes got bigger and bigger...

...every time he drank from it.

Yes!

It's that simple.

That's nice, Käthe.

Käthe?

My name is Waltraut.

A star needs the right name.

A star? - Yes. You can do it!

Brecht!

You have to take care of Gnaß.

He drinks too much. He boozes.

Soon he'll show up drunk at the show.

He's ill.

There are pills. Antabus.

All of them have injuries from the war. Who is healthy?

We also have to have an eye on your young people.

The evening direction wasn't staffed. Again!

Pohl should have been there. He also misses the rehearsals lately.

Tell Rülicke.

Where is the girl anyway? Nothing is done in the kitchen.

She didn't even do the dishes.

I sent her home.

I see!

So the doll visited you.

We rehearsed.

She had no good education. - So you take care of that personally?

She was evicted twice with her parents.

Their furniture ended up on the streets. She dreams about it at night.

We were evicted as well.

From Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and America.

Waltraut might not know that. Not even I want to dream about it.

Look, Helli!

As you talk about it, Waltraut isn't a good name for an actress.

Yes.

Waltraut Reichelt.

That's the child's name. - Käthe! Käthe Reichel sounds better

Well, child? What do you think?

Nice.

Damn!

That there were several women who he lived with and who he loved...

...was a naturalness that wasn't thought about for a long time.

The world is beautiful because we're young.

Because we go forward full of trust.

May has come! Trees leash out!

The direction pulled a bad joke.

It went so far that drunk students sang:

"May has come" in Auerbach's cellar in the night before the 1st of May.

Such a parody of the German folk song hadn't been heard on a stage before.

It was the end of the world.

A catastrophe. Monk should...

The young Monk was too young to know what he did to May Day.

Faust? No! That Faust!

A Prometheus who wants to steal the fire from the Gods?

But not a bit. He's a weedy professor, a helpless would-be, a psychopath.

That shall be Goethe's first draft of Faust?

Arbitrariness in the texts. Disfigurement by alleged ideas.

Disfigurement of the characters.

That means no more than that the work was ripped off its humanistic content and meaning.

One has to ask the question: Isn't it time to check what the Berlin Ensemble is doing?

So, Monk? Do you want to change the direction?

I don't see a reason.

Well, things will stay as they are.

Come on, that's from the very top! Think about it!

Is that worth it?

It looks like some people up there understood what we did.

Faust wasn't a humanist. A bad teacher who wanted Gretchen in his bed.

That's how it was meant.

But remember that they pay the theatre.

The workers pay us! - I share that opinion.

What is it?

I was in Pohl's flat. He's disappeared.

The landlady doesn't want to say anything about it.

He might have been picked up.

I became the victim of a provocateur.

He reported me for allegedly...

...working for the American secret service.

Out of nowhere I was arrested. I didn't know why.

When I imagine my father here...

He was a small, helpless man.

He was only a little taller than I am. He was a nervous wreck.

I can imagine that not much was needed to make him go crazy.

The questionings were from 6am to 10pm.

During that time one wasn't allowed to sleep.

They came at half past ten and it kept going until five in the morning.

For 14 days. It made me break down.

I said: Write whatever you want, I'll sign it.

Monk!

How did you decide?

Will you stage the new play "Katzgraben"?

I can't.

Really?

The place Katzgraben...

The problems in the agricultural cooperative...

The dispossession!

The socialisation of land is a revolutionary act, Monk.

The play doesn't show the real GDR.

What do you think it shows?

The new agricultural cooperative happily sits on the tractor.

Socialists have to ask what really is in the GDR...

...before they say how it should be.

I learned that from you. - I know.

But we have nothing better.

It must have been a lucky coincidence.

It was about more than student and master.

There was a great affection.

I wanted to get out of the GDR where I was told what to read and what to say.

It became obvious that the ensemble wouldn't remain the island it was in the first year.

Juan! - No! No! No!

Why no? - You mustn't cry!

Leave your tears at home. They don't belong on the stage.

They don't belong here?

And the mother who's just lost her son? - She starts thinking.

Now she decides to fight fascism. That's what you're supposed to show.

With sadness? - No!

She mustn't pity herself! Distance!

Your feelings are private.

It's really unprofessional.

Show how Carrar is shaken with every hit!

Dulls!

And in the end she becomes alive.

She gives the comrades the hidden weapons.

Get the guns out! Prepare, José!

The bread is ready.

Weigel was an actress who cried quickly.

Brecht didn't like that.

He was really rough so she made me come to her and cried heavily.

And I said: I'm 22, I can't help you.

She treated it with a stoicism that she showed off, which according to my opinion suppressed a lot.

Helene Weigel leaves the mansion at Weissensee.

She moves into her own flat near the theatre.

About Weigel one can only say that she's...

...one of the most interesting and keen characters I ever got to know.

Weigel made the Berlin Ensemble what it was.

She made Brecht.

Because she did all the organisational work for Brecht.

She was a genius head for the theatre.

She also did the social tasks.

She did the ladie's hair.

She took care of the flats.

She also helped with rehearsals.

She enabled Brecht to live.

She was the mother of the whole thing.

She really was.

She did all the annoying stuff.

She got everything out of Brecht's way.

She was the basis of the whole theatre.

Without Weigel, the Berlin Ensemble probably would have failed.

Hello?

Helli?

Yes?

Where are you?

Here in Weissensee.

Great and lonely.

Since you moved out.

If you couldn't stand it any longer...

Yes.

It's not just the other women.

If you question me as an actress...

Helli?

Hello?

I asked myself that question quite often.

How is that possible?

I explain it the way that she always said it:

She had always been convinced of Brecht's genius.

She was convinced that he's a special person.

That he had to be promoted.

Hill got it for me from a painter who went to West Germany.

Were you too lonely in Weissensee?

I wanted to get closer to the theatre.

I'm here because of the theatre.

Imagine this: The People's Police takes over the Schiffbauerdamm.

What?

Determined by the Socialist Party. I just got it from Elfriede's office.

They didn't want to tell you. - That's mad!

Operas and other patriotic tasks. That's what the party wants.

That's a disgrace. We're working on the most progressive theatre in the world and they don't get it.

What else shall I do?

Against a decision of the party?

They decided it, they can change it.

Some up there don't like us. - A guest in the German Theatre is unacceptable.

If I don't get my own theatre, I'll leave.

And I?

To the minister president Otto Grotewohl.

You might have heard that there are nonsensical rumours in West Germany....

...that the government of the GDR and I are in dispute.

The takeover of the Schiffbauerdamm by the Berlin Ensemble, which is known...

...far beyond Germany, would document my connection with our republic.

This is RIAS Berlin. A free voice in the free world.

This afternoon a delegation of demonstrators appeared at RIAS.

They reported what happened and explained that they wouldn't have showed up if they...

...had received what they wanted after the discussion with Ulbricht or Grotewohl.

As they weren't capable to show the will of the workers directly...

...they chose the way to RIAS.

That way they wanted to make their claims heard.

Brecht! Käthe, turn on the radio!

Something is being prepared.

The builders of Stalin avenue demand their claims via radio.

Lower the life costs!

No, on RIAS. Listen! - Free and secret elections!

Free and secret elections? Those are the claims of West Germany.

No regulation of strikes and... - Yes. The old mask of capitalism.

The demonstration is coming!

Where do you work? - Henning village. Everything's here.

When does work start in the morning? - 6:10am.

What gave you the initiation? Did you decide this morning or yesterday?

This morning.

Did you stop working right away? Did anyone stay there?

Right away! Nobody stayed.

No messages.

That's nonsense!

Why do we send this shit instead of information?

One should tell them! - I could drive to the station.

Tell them that we could help them with the programme.

5000 demonstrators cheer.

Around the Columbia House they occupy the HO.

What happened up there. - Up there they surrendered right away.

They threw away the weapons and surrendered.

A good chance to show that you're one of them.

This might be a good moment to join the party.

For you?

The working class party needs discipline.

Yes, but it also has to be able to learn.

The party is ready. That's what Ulbricht said in his speech at the Friedrichstadt-Palast yesterday.

Now the ND says this:

Walter Ulbricht explained that it's most important for the party to connect with the masses.

And to listen to the workers' complaints.

Elisabeth Hauptmann had been working for Brecht since 1949 again.

He then tasked Elisabeth Hauptmann and myself to drive to the station.

I made the head show up.

He said: Those are the usual stomach aches of an intellectual like Brecht.

There's no reason to worry.

It's normal. We won't change the broadcast programme.

And gentle Elisabeth Hauptmann screamed:

You're stupid! The situation is dangerous. It's on the rocks.

The existence of this country with all its benefits.

History will pay the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany its respect.

The great talk with the masses about the speed of socialism...

...becomes a sight and a protection of the socialist achievements.

Brecht wants the regime to talk to the masses.

The party shall learn from them.

But the party newspaper will only publish its results.

I have to tell you how connected I feel to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

Your Bert Brecht.

Brecht won't protest publicly against the shortening.

We can see the tanks now. - Stop shooting!

From 1pm on the Soviet sector of Berlin will be in a state of emergency.

Give me the personal secretary of Comrade Grotewohl.

What is this about?

I have to give you suggestions and letters by Brecht.

Yes, come right to the station with the car.

We didn't get through with the car.

Who am I talking to? - Kilian. Isot Kilian.

Harich's wife. - Professor Wolfgang Harich's wife. Got that?

Yes. See you.

Yes. See you.

Very good.

The world is looking at Berlin.

For the first time since the GDR was found, 10,000 East Berliners protested...

...in a spontaneous demonstration against the regime's tyranny.

The unrest was started by provocateurs and fascist agents...

...of foreigners and helpers of German capitalist monopoles.

The guilty will be made responsible and harshly punished.

The workers and all honest citizens are asked...

...to catch the provocateurs and hand them to the officials.

It's a shame how Brecht bowed to the terror regime.

That proves the devotion to the director of the socialist party.

It's time for the West German stages to question the dramas and plays of Brecht.

Whether they want to support a partisan of tyranny and give him a place to have his word.

On West German stages, a boycott against Brecht's plays started.

I don't deny that there were agents in the country.

But talking about provocateurs makes it a little easy.

The stagehands earn a minimum wage.

They can't buy anything at the HO stores.

They do terribly.

The workers get to work with a jam sandwich.

They told the unions.

They were put off again and again.

Nothing happened.

Those who had high wages, had special stores.

And another social class in between.

The HO stores were for the people.

A certain hatred arose.

Party and governance only drive car.

Their wives don't queue up.

If someone with a badge talks to you, you don't say your real opinion.

That's true.

That was different at ours.

That was a discussion that didn't come up at ours.

That way one can see the quality of that ensemble.

The fact that they approve of something like that.

A different government...

...free elections...

...those are actual demands by the population.

Nobody believes this government anymore.

But the strikers came angrily and screamed: We want free elections and...

One question:

Do you know what such an election would lead to?

Here and now? Who knows?

This demand for free elections...

...would, in my opinion, not make sense for us.

He didn't want a civil democracy? - No!

Brecht wanted the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I don't think...

...the population is far enough from narcism.

The government we have now is fighting all the elements that threaten the peace in the world.

Head of discussion, Erwin Geschonneck, ends the meeting with a warning:

Always remember that a new government leads to a new world war.

Terrible...

Dear God! Yes!

Yes. Yes. And where did that end?

We are the people.

Maybe the 17th of June was... - The first great tear in the ideology. I think.

In 1956, Hungary's people revolt...

Then I said: I have to leave now.

I can't stand this any longer.

After the riot on the 17th of June, the secretary of the writers' guild had flyers distributed.

They said that the people had lost the trust of the government.

Wouldn't it be easier if the government abandoned the people and elected a new one?

There was no actual department for state security service that had been appointed to an artist before.

The party normally did that with its comrades.

It's the job of art to support establishing socialism.

But it won't help you if a movie or play just has more farmers and workers.

The problems and contradictions in our society have to be shown to find the right solutions.

Conflicts can be shown.

But the solutions should always be optimistic.

Girnus was like Ulbricht.

A proletarian pighead. He taught himself a lot and was convinced that those were facts.

Only the worst traditions!

Although we, in the GDR, are the real heirs of the humanistic tradition in German history.

Luther, Lessing and Goethe. Our classics.

Marx, Engels... - ...Pieck and Ulbricht!

Excuse me? - Pieck and Ulbricht do their work.

Let me do mine.

And for that I need my own theatre.

I can't stay an eternal guest and lodger at the German Theatre.

How do you want to win our working people with your consciously poor theatre?

And that in your people's unfriendly language?

I'll win them.

I trust in people.

And their enthusiasm to think.

Dear Comrade Walter Ulbricht!

Besides the wrong conception of Brecht in the case...

...I'd suggest a more flexible treatment of the whole case.

For that reason I'd suggest to give the Berlin Ensemble and Brecht their own theatre.

I also expect an educational effect from that move.

He'll have to prove that he can win over the audience, especially the workers.

He can't do that with the current means.

So he shouldn't be given a little hut, but a proper theatre.

That way he can't excuse his primitivism and puritanism with a lack of technology.

He suggests to give Brecht the theatre at the Schiffbauerdamm.

His idea is to give it to him so that he'll die out with it.

The creator of our plans.

The man with a sharp eye and quick decision. His name is Comrade Walter Ulbricht.

Isot, I have a question.

Is there anything about me that you don't like?

Anything that disturbs you?

When I'm screamed at.

Really uncontrolled and terribly.

That happens at the theatre.

There can be many reasons for someone not doing something.

That's true.

What else? - Your unpredictability.

Unpredictability? - Your feelings!

Sometimes peaceful like now and then you're quick-tempered and loud.

Now you're like this, then you're like that.

You have no idea what the people in the theatre say.

Brecht is above the law.

Where are we now?

You know that I have a little house by the lake.

Not?

Unfortunately I have no time.

Do you want to set me out now? - Isot, I'll never set you out.

And I'll never scream at you again.

You promise?

People can change. - Can Brecht?

Are you mad? You want to quit?

It's because of the 17th of June and your letter to the government.

My father says those who still stand behind you and your morale...

What do you know about my morale?

You want to leave? You can't even stand on your own feet.

Yes.

Let me tell you this: You'll fail at every theatre.

Yes. And he was right.

I wasn't done. - You don't know how to play theatre.

You have nothing. Nothing. You're non-independent.

You can only win recognition if everything's specially tailored for you.

He was angry that I didn't start a relationship with him.

That was the reason. But now I wanted it even less.

What's wrong with your sweetheart?

She wanted to quit.

How did you decide that day after you were screamed at?

Of course I stayed there.

Look at this!

We made it.

Now you have your theatre. - The Schiffbauerdamm.

Now you'll be the senior director.

The lady director finally has her own house.

Thanks, Helli!

It has the right size and is at the right place.

And the right history.

Now the dare has been decided and it's time to start the fun.

We stay seated in the meadow, Michel.

Until Grusche gets us a can of milk.

Could I have a can of milk, grandpa? Or some corn bread?

Milk? We have no milk. - Why is the farmer so dismissive?

Why does he want to sell the milk for a higher price?

If the farmer still had all his goats, he'd have milk as well.

He could be more generous then.

If we show it like that, the spectators have a different view on the people on stage.

The spectators can change if the relation changes.

People talk about characters that always come up like a grease spot in the pants. Nonsense!

Michel, did you hear that?

Three Piastres. We can't afford that.

Ten years ago:

1944, New York, 57th street.

In Ruth Berlau's apartment.

Joint work at the Caucasian Chalk Circle.

A maid is on the run. She saves her child.

It's the governor's child. - She loves the child from the very beginning.

But why does she love it?

Yes, you're right. Something is lacking.

If she engages to the soldier before the flight, she wants his child.

But he isn't there.

In that case she takes the foundling.

So little Michel is a child of love as well.

That's good. That's right.

We have to try this again then. Suck!

I didn't even steal it like Grusche.

Our Michel.

Don't talk so much about it.

Not everyone in Santa Monica has to know that you'll have Brecht's child.

I can't be your ghost.

The whore of a classic. - Ruth, be reasonable.

I can't be as reasonable as you.

We work and love each other.

That keeps us together.

For the upcoming socialism.

I know it will come.

Will we stay together?

Yes. - Forever?

Suck! Remember the three Piastres.

There's nothing in there but you think you're drinking and that's something.

But feel this! You say it's a muscle but why does it hurt so much sometimes?

Brecht's family lives in Los Angeles.

Ruth Berlau's apartment is the little New York office for him.

Ruth makes phone calls for him and negotiates for him.

She takes pictures of Brecht's texts and starts a kind of microfilm archive of his manuscripts.

Brecht was scared that a war or a flight would destroy his creation.

As a judge I'm obliged to pick a mother for the child.

I'll make a test.

Take a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the ground.

It takes too long.

Put the child in there.

Plaintiff and defendant, stand next to the circle.

Both!

Grab the child's hands.

The right mother will have the power to pull the child out of the circle.

Santa Monica 1944.

The house of Brecht's family.

After Ruth Berlau's surgery on the uterus in Los Angeles, she has a premature birth.

The child died.

Ruth Berlau then lived in Santa Monica with Brecht for a while.

A little further away from the family's house.

Then he arranged her journey back to New York.

So that you can become more independent in New York.

Independent from me.

And that you'll find back to writing. It's a chance for you.

Don't worry about other women.

Come back as soon as you can.

I love you.

I thought he wanted to get rid of me.

And I wanted to be reasonable.

But then I found this letter that he put in my pocket at the train station.

I want to become just as you want me to be.

Pull! - In New York, she collapses under the pressure.

Ruth is sent into psychiatry.

The court has now found out who the real mother is.

Ruth!

Wekwerth!

Come, I'll take you home. - Leave me alone!

Don't touch me!

The third thing!

Now it's too late.

Now you're looking for fresh meat.

Again!

Another real hug!

More action! Come on!

I'm fine, Helli.

Brecht and I...

Yes, we were closer together in May 1954.

It just happened.

And then he said I should decide how close we want to be and whether I want to come to him.

He was too much of a coward to look at one directly.

He looked a bit past one.

It wasn't a yes or a no.

He let the other person decide.

Here I am.

I'm glad you've come.

We've waited for a long time.

It was that soft voice. - And now?

When he said Regine with that "R", he had a lot of charm.

And one day he said:

You're a nice girl.

And I thought that danger was coming.

He expected me to dedicate myself.

Ise!

Not Isot or Isotchen anymore?

No! Ise!

And Helli?

She's reasonable. She'll understand. Don't worry.

In the meantime Helene Weigel had moved into Chausseestreet.

Into the flat above Brecht.

There are those women stories that partly are unbearable for me.

With those stupid women... I never understood why he did it.

To me, some of these women were unexplainable.

You know, when I say something about my relationship with Brecht...

...and don't mention that, it's like concealing.

Of course it was important.

But it wasn't that important.

It's not easy to talk about stuff like that.

And not talk about the other women.

Of course that...

It was a great love relationship.

All of that hurt a lot.

It wasn't easy. Not a bit.

Summer 1954.

The Berlin Ensemble in Paris.

An invitation to the international theatre festival in the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt.

At the same time it's a visit to the city of culture.

A special flair is over the city.

The business with the nice dresses, the booksellers at the Seine...

...the painters at the Montmartre, the bistros and the Louvre.

Brecht came from Berlin in his car.

We're looking forward to the reunion.

Isot Kilian is there as well.

Gerda Goedhart farewells her girlfriend Angelika to the show.

But you that huvny died as yet the powers that be, they still do need.

Courage thinks war is necessary for her life.

But what happens in front of us, happens outside of us.

At the same moment that distance is given we see, we know that war isn't fateful.

That's the great contribution by Brecht.

His theatre doesn't preach and is therefore more powerful.

The Berlin Ensemble wins the first prize of the festival.

At home they get better press and more value as a flagship of the GDR.

In the sport hall at the Stalin avenue!

Children celebrate from all sectors of Berlin with the Free Federation of German Trade Unions.

After the act of mercy in 1954, Brecht's master student, Martin Pohl, is set free after two years.

I had Weigel on the phone and she said: Pohl! You're back?

That's nice!

As if I had come from hospital.

Come to us!

We have our final rehearsal today.

You'll meet Brecht.

It was as if I was a part of the crew again.

But that wasn't the case.

Thanks for the letters.

And thanks to the attorney.

That way I felt as if I still was a part.

That I hadn't disappeared entirely. It protected me.

It's nice that you're back.

Enjoy it.

Thanks, Helli. - Thanks.

Pohl, tell me exactly what happened.

I signed not to talk about the case.

Tell me anyway. I want to know.

The questionings at night...

The sleep deprivation at day...

I broke down.

I told the interrogator:

Write down what you want, I'll sign.

So you were charged for a lie?

You admitted something you hadn't done?

But everyone knew.

I'll call the judicial authority now.

The Director of Public Prosecutions. He'll rehabilitate you.

Dear God! Don't do that.

Otherwise I'll be in prison again tomorrow.

You have to forget, Pohl.

Read the ballad that Oscar Wilde wrote on the jail in Reading where he was in for homosexuality.

And write your ballad.

His punishment by the court was a writing prohibition for five years.

To employ him for that time, the writers' guild suggested to send Pohl into an asylum for teenagers.

I got indirect tasks as an informer.

That was enough!

Then I left.

Brecht.

Yes, Anna Seghers.

What are you doing in Moscow?

Is that official?

Of course.

See you.

Now you'll get the Stalin prize.

Our enemies will be quiet for now.

Aren't there like 100,000 Rubles prize money?

Half of it to Switzerland. - Just in case.

Rülicke will come to Moscow. She can interpret.

And Isotchen? - She'll stay here.

But you'll come along, right?

I'll put it on your jacket myself.

Nikolai Tichonow hands over to Bertolt Brecht.

The peoples that fought for a socialist economy...

...have a great position when it comes to peace.

The impulses of the people become peaceful.

The fight: everyone against everyone becomes everyone for everyone.

When you help society, you help yourself. When you help yourself, you help society.

The useful have a good time, not the harmful anymore.

That's the secret speech of Chruschtschow on the 20th party congress.

A Polish officer gave it to me confidentially.

Stalin walked the path of terror.

Executions without verdicts and investigations.

That caused insecurity, fear and even desperation.

Breaking out of barbarity can have barbaric traits.

He died three years ago.

Who did we bury?

The farewell from the biggest genius of our epoch.

Josef Wissarionowitsch Stalin.

It was shown that many party members that were regarded as enemies in 1937 and 1938...

...had never been enemies, spies, wreckers or anything similar.

Indeed they were always...

...honest communists.

But they were denigrated and sometimes the barbaric torture...

Torture?

Does it say torture?

So it's true.

Sometimes the barbaric torture was too much for them...

...and they accused themselves of serious and improbable crimes.

During the cleansing, the comrades were shot after the torture and the verdicts were drawn up later.

No! Käthe, those who want to keep it a secret are right.

This mustn't be published.

Not yet.

Talked to them with gun and whip:

Every day of the week. Every weekday.

The merited murderer of the people.

When I saw the flash in the newsreel, I changed the Galilei immediately with Charles Laughton.

Ruth then filmed our Galilei in Los Angeles in 1947.

The early morning, the nice hour, how he enjoys it.

The first look into the books.

The first lesson.

Thinking is a physical lust.

The morning of a new century.

Everything starts with the lust in knowledge.

But what will happen to that knowledge?

Will it be used or misused?

The original sin of science and the final product was the nuke.

That was...

...a clear wound in the play in California.

That still mattered a lot for our thinking in Berlin ten years later.

That was the situation during the cold war.

In the Paris' arrangement, the literary Bertolt Brecht said...

...that a third world war would turn Germany uninhabitable.

The second phase of the rearmament of the federal republic has begun.

About 2000 volunteers went to the training camps.

The old friend Caspar Neher is on his way to Bertolt Brecht in the Soviet sector of Berlin.

Since the early 1950s, since the cold war had heated up, Brecht...

...and his scene builder hadn't worked together anymore.

Don't tell Brecht that I called.

You know that he doesn't like that.

He's pretty sick.

It's like the flu, but it doesn't stop. The fever comes and goes.

But he's in treatment, right?

Those from the Charité and Dr. Mertens from West Germany appease.

And he doesn't want anyone to realise.

He rehearses and rehearses.

He wears himself out during the meetings of the academy.

And his heart?

Very shaky, he says.

He gets Digitalis as an aid.

Galilei lets his assistant look through the new field glass.

Shouldn't he look himself? - No!

What does he see? The sun shines onto earth and moon.

The earth throws its shadow onto the moon. He knows that.

Just look forward and enjoy your victory.

What you see is that there's no difference between heaven and earth.

What you see is that there's no difference between heaven and earth.

He was in a cinema with Isot recently. He almost had to leave.

An attack? - He suddenly couldn't breathe anymore.

What happens to knowledge?

A new worldview could lead to a new society.

Without a pope or an emperor.

It all depends on the bravery of Galilei.

Whether he wants to give the liberating knowledge to the force or to the people.

Humanity writes in its journal: Heaven has been abolished.

Listen, Kamper! Get up!

You're horrified by the consequences.

Turn forward and stay stiff!

Yes!

Where is God in your world system? - In us or nowhere?

In us or nowhere.

As the burned said. - As the burned said.

Make sure that Brecht can calm down.

You shall return for the scenery. - What?

For the BE? Permanently in the GDR?

Just for Galilei.

Sagredo, I believe in humans.

Busch! Busch! - That means I believe in sanity.

You know that others were already burned as heretics for this truth.

But now you have evidence.

And talk soberly. That makes it appeal better.

Sagredo, I believe in humans. That means I believe in sanity.

Without that belief, I wouldn't have the power to get out of bed in the morning.

Cas, it's serious.

He needs you.

You've had a name for a long time.

You could have worked in the east or the west.

A prosecutor in West Germany gave it to me in writing:

Working for Brecht is a political issue. An acknowledgment for the other side.

Working for me is a political issue?

An acknowledgment for the other side? - For the other side of the iron curtain.

That's how they see it.

That's an insolence by that man.

Out of the question!

That boldness! A disgrace. - You know that!

In this country, every text, every line is checked by the party. Even yours.

Even the paper for printing is only assigned after the censorship.

We're fighting that stupidity.

And a lot has become better. - It's true.

We aren't what they want, but they don't want to lose what they have with us.

The way they stand on the yard, he reconstructed that.

It's like the position of the acting comrades on the stage...

...at the parade on Red Square or the Marx-Engels square.

Insightful for the fanciers.

Yes. And the audience of course consisted of fanciers.

Under the surveillance of the church's authority...

...Galilei used the nights to write down his Discorsi in secret. His scientific work.

It shows his student the hiding place in the globe.

The inquisition!

It forced Galilei, by threatening him with torture, to withdraw it.

He had to deny his new worldview as a mistake.

You hid the truth from the enemy.

That changes everything. - Explain that, Andrea.

So far he's been the traitor, afraid of torture.

Now turn him into a hero.

We told the man on the street he'd die, but never revoke.

You returned and said you'd revoked, but will live.

We said their hands are stained, and you said stained hands are better than empty ones.

Stained hands are better than empty ones.

Sounds realistic.

Sounds like me.

That sounds familiar to you. - It's astonishing.

The fact that it was only seen that late.

The identity of Brecht and Galilei.

Brecht walks, stands and talks like Galilei.

Do you think Brecht knew that he said something about his situation through Galilei?

"Knew" is a difficult word.

Guessed?

That concerns...

...the difference between science and art, right?

That's a different way of knowing.

He wrote it.

Can Galileo forgive his betrayal?

Stained hands are better than empty ones.

Both apply.

The performance and the betrayal.

Galilei had to give his freeing knowledge to the people.

You say that?

We ask questions.

Some say that Brecht knows the answers beforehand as well.

Be careful with the answers.

We're acrobats.

We need ropes to dance on.

Otherwise they'll use it to hang someone.

I found the question concerning the conviction of Galilei....

Justification or conviction remains unanswered.

It has to be passed on.

The theatre mustn't answer that.

It has to be re-answered again and again in the audience

Yes, Cas.

Soon you'll stand down there.

But when that happens, you have to promise me that you'll finish Galilei with Engel.

He's already at the rehearsals.

No! Do you believe that yourself?

You still have a lot to do.

But then!

At 60!

We'll retire.

Let the assistants work.

A house under the southern sky.

With a lot of time for our talks.

Like back in Augsburg.

Yes. Exactly.

When I die, die, die...

...carriages carry me and music is played!

Because I love, love, love that.

Sing and dance loud and shiningly. Farewell!

Ladies of Vienna, Vienna, Vienna will become really sad.

They'll stand around the bar.

He's gone, gone, gone.

The ghost was my soul. Goodbye and farewell.

Attention! Attention! One, two, three!

Do everything he says.

Don't make him angry. Do everything he says.

He already wasn't well anymore.

He couldn't scream up to the stage anymore.

Listen!

Hello!

I won't be in London.

That's why all of us have to work a little faster.

Otherwise they'll get bored in England.

Not all of them talk German.

That sounds like a voice from the grave.

But they'll be able to follow the plot with the pictures and your gestures.

That was two days before he died.

He tried it until the day before the end.

Don't walk through the scene so homely.

Don't play pedestrians. Faster!

Let's watch that again.

But his last stage direction was for the stand.

I was the fat woman in the Chalk Circle. The quilted one.

Don't illustrate too much.

The old woman isn't sick.

She isn't stupid. She's just fat.

Yes.

I won't be able to stay for long today.

Have a good journey.

He gave me his hand. - Thanks.

His hand was slack and pressureless.

I have to thank him for everything.

Everything I am, what I became, is thanks to him.

He utilized many people for his life and plans. But he also gave...

But he gave incredibly much back. If you knew how to use it.

You were with him for many years. You were a beloved actress for him.

Do you feel as if you knew him?

He knew me.

Very well.

And nobody could know him.

The doctor hit his cheek a little.

The last thing dad said was:

Leave me alone!

Then he was gone.

Good night, Isot.

Open after my death.

Helli shall arrange this:

First: Death shall be ensured.

I'll open the femoral artery now.

Second: The coffin shall be made of steel or iron.

Third: The coffin won't be exhibited openly.

Fourth: If it has to be exhibited, it shall be done in the rehearsal house.

Fifth: No music shall be played. - Now we're all alone in the world.

Only the name Brecht shall be on the stone.

Thanks, Helli. Brecht!

A week later there was this ad.

It was by a wine company from the Rhineland "Threepenny droplet".

It had Brecht's death mask on it.

Weigel had all death masks collected and destroyed in the theatre's court by a stagehand.

In the GDR, the systematic surveillance of the political opposition and artists starts now.

Later it'll be the whole population.

Helene Weigel takes on Brecht's task to carry on the Berlin Ensemble as he'd have wanted.

She saves Brecht's estate from the GDR's Socialist Unity Party.

She protects his work from forgers by the party.

So she, like many others, helped Brecht become a classic.