Original subtitles

Untertitel: WDR mediagroup GmbH

No. No no no. Please, full light!

Only from ... No, no, no, it doesn't help.

Brightest lighting, please.

* Music *

(Narrator) East Berlin 1956.

Chausseestraße 125.

Bertolt Brecht's apartment.

* Music *

Even my childhood lover, whom I was very fond of

and to me because of a strange indifference on my part

slips out of my mind

like the figure in a book that I read.

* Music *

"Bidi and Beijing.

Im Allgäu Bi.

He says good.

Tomorrow she says. "

(Paula Banholzer) I'll come to Goethe right away. So he said.

Yeah that was a little presumptuous as he said

but that wasn't how I felt at the time.

(Narrator) summer 1917.

Der Primaner Brecht

has a first date with the student Paula Banholzer.

At last. He brought her a song.

Why do you say that? - What do you mean?

"Then stumbles through the hell embers."

It's just a song, Miss Paula. A game.

Hell embers, so you don't mock.

Don't be afraid that you will go on forever with sinners in hell ...

Burning forever, you mean?

Now you laugh again.

Don't you believe in hell? - Yes, yes.

And also to the sky.

In any case, that would be preferable.

Although, by Mr. Lucifer, sinners in hell,

that would surely be the more interesting society.

Is nothing sacred to you?

She and I. - Holy? We?

Important.

Something special.

I am nothing special. I am ... nothing.

That can change.

I sans catholic. That you only know.

And you?

I read a lot in the Bible.

A beautiful book, a strong book.

But also a bad book.

The Holy Scriptures.

And.

(Paula Banholzer) I'm so scared.

I'm all the way ... I could jump.

He wouldn't have followed me at all.

And then I'm off

so I was horrified at what he dared to do.

He later apologized.

And then in time I found myself in there.

Because I was still completely inexperienced in all these things.

And I know, and we opened an umbrella there.

And then he was happy because he could kiss me.

Then he was satisfied.

* Music *

Shouldn't we say "you" to each other?

Eugene. - No. Not Eugene.

Bidi.

And you are now the "bi".

Warum "Bi"?

Bittersweet.

Bittersweet.

(Paula Banholzer) From English. So I was, partly bitter, partly sweet.

He chose that.

Maybe it's true.

It was bitter

because I was so reluctant to get so intimate with him.

And that was the bitter thing for him.

I want you to be mine.

You should all know.

But you ca n't go with anyone else now .

Do you hear?

Since he was mad at my other admirers

and ordered me to his room , to the stall.

I was very shy in the corner,

he spoke, gave a lecture for at least 1 hour.

And then later he told me

inside he was trembling all the time, I could walk away.

(Narrator) Augsburg in the First World War.

They were enthusiastic about going to war in 1914 .

I air my skirt and pants, sunny, because I love that.

Yes / Yes. That is the Baal.

He grazes the women with a smack.

And the men too.

And throws them away when they're digested.

Just like life Cas, that knows no morals.

Yes, you could become famous with the Baal .

You also. I need you.

Strange.

If you did n't live next week .

Cas, I have plans with you.

I was a bit curious what the war was.

That's why I volunteered.

Now we know better. - Yes.

Death lives there.

You can see him every day.

It tears people apart.

The dead are kicked in the mud.

(Dr. Gephard) 11 classmates are called up,

are ready to sacrifice their lives for the fatherland.

"It is sweet and fitting to die for your country."

"It is sweet and honorable to die for the fatherland."

The saying of the noble Horace.

All of you, gentlemen,

very well explained these words in your essay on reflection.

"The greatest happiness would be to fulfill my duty

and die heroic on the front lines . "

Wiedemann.

And.

Put!

Brecht.

Stand up.

Read.

Yes.

"The saying that it is sweet and honorable

to die for the fatherland

can only be considered as propaganda .

Farewell to life is always difficult

in bed like on the battlefield,

most certainly young people in the prime of their years. "

What a shabby materialistic view of man.

Without ideals!

(Narrator) Did he say something there

what many have thought?

Further!

(Walter Groos) That is probably said too much that many thought it.

Because from feeling to speaking,

until clear thinking

was of course not enough for most.

"Only hollow heads can drive vanity so far ..."

I don't hear anything!

(louder) "Only hollow heads can drive vanity so far

to speak of a slight jump through the dark gate,

and this too,

as long as they believe themselves far from the last hour. "

Be quiet!

It is a mean mockery of sacrifice

Your schoolmates.

You spoiled everything with it.

Now, the School Committee will give a ruling,

whether you can stay at this school.

Break, you san a disappointment.

Now God help you.

(Father) They want to expel you from school.

We ca n't tell mom.

When she's getting sicker anyway.

Eugen, what did you think? For heaven's sake!

It's the truth.

"I Phillip and fast flight."

"The Horace has fled."

You can't say everything you think out loud .

Let your father tell you that.

If you can't tell them the truth?

What do you know

At the beginning of the war you wrote completely different truths.

"We Germans must now keep our honor, our freedom,

and that's worth every sacrifice. " It was in the newspaper.

I was proud of it.

Do you know what that means now, your new truths?

No high school diploma, no medical studies , no provision.

A certificate from my heart

then do not take me to the pattern.

No! After mediation from school

you will be drafted immediately.

Then you land on the front.

There is no exception. Not any longer longer.

You do your duty. And you?

What are you doing here?

I write.

Yes, you write and write and you feel superior to all of us.

A poet.

Well, what is this supposed to be?

"I want to become famous one day. I will show the world how it is.

But how it really is. "

There they have you under Goethe and Schiller

just left a place . - Yes.

I am the next.

(Otto Bezold) He said I'm next.

I'll stand there one day.

Did you believe him then? - Yes absolutely.

He always said:

I am the last poet of the German language.

The last German genius.

? People hear the story

that happened recently,

that I faithfully tell you

let's see an example ?

That's how it should be in the theater.

A bench singer opens the act or some kind of confectionary.

A clown comments: Look out for Hamlet.

In the next round he makes a serious mistake.

(Müllereisert) Yes, there he goes

Look at the fat one. 2 hundredweight and flies like a dove.

Look, it puffs up the skirt! They are doing it on the swing.

How the blaring changes the people.

(Mullerisertert) Be glad that you can still do the war baccalaureate.

You just got away.

(Pfanzelt) It was the storyline

a young man confused by the war , they said.

That's why others went to the fool's house.

I'm still needed.

* Music *

* Shots *

* Music *

Oh, are you?

Miss Röcker, are you back with the Brecht family?

Yes, it's very bad with Frau Brecht.

She can no longer take care of the household.

(Sophie Brecht) Yes, Mr. Neher.

Eugene heard nothing more from you, from the front.

Where have you been? - Ms. Brecht.

Sit down there with me.

Eugene goes to Munich to study medicine in autumn .

Then my brother is put back by the military.

Hopefully they'll take me next year.

And how are you?

Yes, they are in der Sonne,

there is some strength again.

That helps against the pain.

I'm just a fence guest of life anyway .

There look.

Risen from the dead.

Miss Röcker ...

...and my father? I think there was something.

And where there was something ... - ... it can be again.

The doctors examined me.

Und? - "KV".

Suitable for war. God, what a word.

So it is in the marching order.

I never come to your funeral .

If fate wants it that way.

Fate? Cas, this war, all this bloodbath out there,

it's all a huge hoax.

I think all of life is a hoax, Eugene.

I saw a spider the other day .

It throws the thread from one point to another.

She climbs up and down.

It was beautiful how she weaves.

She carries this thread in her body

a thread that takes them everywhere.

Case.

Listen to me:

You still have that. - No.

I am a dead block.

I was already in the grave, trapped under beams.

Buried alive.

I could hardly move.

It was very dark.

I didn't know how many days, how many nights.

And when you're dead, then ...

Then the worms come.

The rats come first.

* Music *

We're lying on the Lech in the sun

let's float in the water

look at the bare, hungry sky, in the evening ultraviolet.

And the spit lies well in bed and snores.

And the Paula? How about that?

You curious Pfaff, gruesome.

Paula will soon have to confess.

? Does a woman have fat hips ...

(both) ... I put them in the green grass.

I air my skirt and pants.

Sunny because ...

(everyone) ... I love that.

Bites the woman with ecstasy ...

(all) ... wipe yourself off with green grass.

Mouth and bite and lap and nose ...

(all) Clean because I love that.

(laugh)

This is cruel. - What is cruel?

After all, I have to go back. You also.

Bert is exempted as a medical student.

Man, painter Neher, the two of us still have plans.

Remember, you won't dig up again.

3, 4 ...

? Does the woman do the beautiful thing ...

(all) ... fiery, but in excess.

I shake hands with her and laugh ...

(all) ... friendly, because I love that.?

The Baal lives in such a roof building.

And now he's dragging Sophie in on both arms,

as if he stole her from the street, understand?

"Sophie breathes heavily, Baal says evenly:

Can't get your breath right?

Sophie: I don't know what I have.

She is leaning against the wall.

Baal:

I know it.

It is spring.

It's getting dark and you smell me.

So it is with the animals. "

"With the animals", should that be said in front of everyone in the theater?

And.

"Baal pulls the door shut, goes quickly to her,

takes Sophie in her arms.

Sophie, breathless:

Let me! You are so ugly, so ugly that you get scared.

Baal: But then ...

... it doesn't matter.

Baal kisses Sophie.

Sophie:

Not!

You know, no one has ever seen me like this ...

There has never been anything where I am.

Baal leads Sophie back to the bed.

They sit down.

Baal:

You have to love me

I got you for that. "

I have to go home now.

At home they are waiting for me. - Yes. You have to.

If you send yourself to the country again .

For hamsters? - Yes, I mean that.

What then?

(Paula Banholzer) He had a room in Munich,

I think it was in Schwabing.

Then he said to lie down in his room.

He has to go to university at the lecture.

He then picks me up for lunch.

"Dear Cas, the Bittersweet case is approaching some catharsis,

that must be over until you read this.

She seems to want it.

Help her god and me. "

* Music *

Bidi?

On, no, Bidi!

Net!

(Paula Banholzer) And then we ate.

And then we ate blueberry slices as a dessert .

So the teeth have turned blue and the lips.

And then he saw me and laughed like that.

Then he suddenly kissed me in the middle of the mouth in front of everyone ,

because he liked it so much.

And of course I was the disgraced again, I was ashamed again.

But it worked for him.

(Bi) "From that day on, I became a certain sense of guilt

no longer going.

On the other hand, I was now more intimate with Brecht.

From now on our best time began. "

"Dear Cas, Bittersweet, which I now have entirely.

You have to paint them.

Your period has not come.

I wasn't careful, of course, not a bit.

It would have harmed the cheerfulness.

I'm not a tarot player.

I ca n't hold back my trumps like that. "

That you come back to me - I will be back.

I will fight,

that the war will not come to you in Germany.

Take care.

And come back safely.

My instructors say

I would be the best soldier in the recruits depot.

A good soldier recognizes the danger.

If it should be: a letter for you and one for mother.

I thank you for everything.

Be careful.

I will write to you from the front.

I'm afraid for him.

He swims in his heroic bliss.

I don't like how you say that .

The enemy is not yet on German soil.

Now it's about an honorable peace.

Honor, duty, fatherland.

And then? Heroic death.

The way you look. You did n't even strap on a paddock.

I misplaced it. - And what are these shoes?

I am only a medical soldier and care for my sexually ill.

They have their wounds from a completely different battlefield.

* Music *

(hums)

? And when the war in 4th Lenz offered no prospect of peace,

then the soldier took his consequence and died the heroic death.

The medical commission was drawn to the Gottesacker.

And dug up the fallen soldier with a dedicated spade .

With Tschingdrara and goodbye, with wife and dog and Pfaff.

And right in the middle the dead soldier like a drunk monkey.

The stars are not always there.

There is a dawn.

But the soldier, as he learned it, goes into heroic death. ?

(Narrator) Over 2 million dead soldiers on the front.

Over 2 million war cripples and 426,000 starvation deaths at home.

The war was lost.

Turn of the times.

In November 1918, the empire collapsed in a revolution.

The monarchy has collapsed.

(Narrator) The radical left among revolutionaries

demands the overthrow

the capitalist social order.

The young republic, led by the social democrats,

the military calls for help.

The Reichswehr is fighting Spartacus in the Berlin newspaper district .

What is? Now talk.

I have to go.

Fort?

Our child, I ...

It must not be born here.

I haven't been asked anything either.

I was one who had to go now.

The bus only runs once a day.

Yes, you are really stuck here.

I am not allowed to show up in Augsburg .

The shame.

And the child?

Later we find foster parents,

and then maybe I can go home in a year .

(Paula Banholzer) The child was not yet born.

Since he came at least every 4 weeks.

Then he slept in the room next door.

I'm over there, it's in there and it's colossal ...

He was badly together.

What is it? What do you have?

(breathes heavily) My heart!

He was scared. You have that with heart stories.

Has he been frightened?

Then I got up and made envelopes for him.

And then he says: It's getting easier now , it's getting better.

And gradually he has come to rest.

One day I'll open the drawer and then ...

(breathes heavily) Then there is enough money inside.

That made me think a lot.

Because I've never seen anything like it.

Quiet, calm. All good.

The Feuchtwanger, the Feuchtwanger, is reading my Spartacus.

The man has a name in Munich.

If he would suggest it to the Kammerspiele , yes.

If he would suggest it to the Kammerspiele .

(Narrator) Caspar Neher's diary, March 1919:

"Was with Bert today and was happy.

We found

that Bert was absolutely a genius and so would I.

We believe in our genius as in the straw of the sinking. "

how the revolution founded a Soviet republic in Munich .

Also a dream of many artists.

When the communists take over power in the Soviet Republic,

the Reichswehr marches in.

Brecht and Neher experience how the military

supported by the right-wing Freikorps,

fight the Soviet Republic bloody.

Brecht's brother Walter had joined the Freikorps.

Walter, you never have to risk your life.

Spartacus is done.

You don't risk your life at all.

No. Under no circumstance.

And certainly not for the Freikorps.

See to it that you come safely to your dorm room.

Yesterday they cut a post here .

The comrades are pretty angry.

(Walter Brecht) "Above the Theresienwiese

there were enemy soldiers killed and shot in several rows .

They had made short work of them .

We had to see how people felt about us

to get close to the dead and to vile them.

The mass grave was waiting for those stained with blood, feces and urine . "

* Music *

* loud singing *

(Narrator) In 1984 Walter Brecht told me about it.

How did he experience the wake up disorder ?

(Walter Brecht) "As an outrageous blasphemy

and insolence, that's how I understood it this hour.

And I would have to lie if I did it today after so many years

would understand a lot differently.

This challenge everyone else

who were in pain in this house ,

in order to cover your own sensation, so to speak. He was like that. "

"They had threatened 20 winters.

Their sufferings were legion.

Death was ashamed of her. "

(Ernestine Müller) I went on duty

there he was sitting on the railing at the moat at 7 o'clock .

And then he said to me:

I have to make the death poem to my mother .

"Oh why don't we say the important thing?

It was easy words, close behind the teeth,

had fallen out while laughing.

And we choke on it in our throat. "

(Narrator) Have you ever seen him cry?

No. No.

(Narrator) You ca n't imagine

that Brecht could cry.

No no. I couldn't.

(Narrator) Notebook 1921. Cover.

Hardness!

He could laugh maliciously, he could ... But he did ...

I can not imagine that.

(Marianne Zoff) ? The love comes from the gypsy,

it does not ask about rights, law and power.

If you don't love me, I'm aflame.

And if I love, be careful.

If you do not love me, I am inflamed with a hot love for you. ?

(Marianne Zoff) "He had just come into my dressing room

and complimented me.

He talked and talked.

I noticed that I liked him.

Then he took me for a walk in Augsburg and talked and talked. "

* Singing *

* Music *

? And if I love, be careful. ?

And with that we recommend ourselves.

I will again with the directorate of the Kammerspiele

talk about your play.

But your title "Spartacus" gives it a wrong political tendency.

My returnees only sides with himself.

For the wide middle-class bed.

But just because they didn't raise politically.

The Marta would have a good suggestion.

"Drumming in the Night". - That can be from me.

We take that.

Good night!

Doctor Feuchtwanger,

I would always be kind to you .

A dog is a beautiful. - He wants everyone and everything.

A man-eater of its kind.

Is it real? - Mhm.

It is definitely worth living.

And.

You danced very provocatively with the woman Feuchtwanger.

Very sensual.

But then I ran away from her.

And came to me.

And we danced.

Wange ...

... on cheek.

Very sensual.

Why did you want to leave before midnight?

Because it's my birthday right now .

Congratulation.

I am now 23 years old.

I'm a bit older then.

From a purely spiritual point of view, I am a Methuselah.

Whole libraries are gathered up there.

And own pieces that are now coming on stage.

"Drumming in the Night".

Then comes the "Baal".

And before that "The Bible".

An early work.

An early work? You are only 23.

I wrote it when I was 15.

Then "Gargei" follows.

And especially...

... my "summer symphony".

* Music *

Where did you get the fur from?

A singer needs something like that these days.

A fur protects.

Put him away

You have a strange way of dancing.

Strange?

More of a kind of rhythmic walking.

* Music *

What does this creep want from you?

I'm not sorry

when he touches you with his gooey frog fingers.

I have told him.

I can no longer, I no longer want.

And? What did he say?

He loves me.

He does everything for me if I just stay with him.

I can smell it.

How he approaches you with his scent of carrion.

And how disgusting you are.

He's not like that.

If I want, he'll leave me alone.

Tell him you belong to me now.

He knows it. - And?

He cried.

(laughs) Machiavelli with soaked handkerchiefs.

From now on you will no longer accept any money from him.

You don't let him through your door anymore

and certainly not in your bed.

Absolutely no way. I’m not sorry.

I can't forbid him theater.

Yes, not that. But how you sing it.

I am Carmen.

Yes, but also the ... * ringtone *

I'm pregnant.

From whom?

From whom? From you!

But do not worry. I'll marry right.

(Narrator) Diary March 21, 1921:

"I already have a child growing up among farmers.

May it get fat and not curse me.

But now the unborn are already fighting for me.

I cannot marry.

I have to have my elbows free

sleep alone and be unscrupulous. "

I am a gypsy.

I need someone who is different. That keeps me from running.

I am now writing films and a leading role for you.

* Music *

Do you still love me a little bit?

You stupid goat! I think of you every day.

When I am 21 we can get married.

Well, we should have money.

Then we can eat the boy too.

Come on, we go on. - Little horse.

Here.

Where he lives now, the path-maker and his wife ...

Is that the right thing here? - They are good people.

(Narrator) Frank Banholzer stays in Kimratshofen for many years.

He'll go to school here.

An elderly pioneer and his wife

had taken him in for a fee.

The parents rarely come to visit.

From Marianne for you.

(Marianne Zoff) "I'm getting married right."

(Right) You understood?

* Music *

She has had heavy bleeding. You had to operate.

And yes, she lost the child.

Woman right.

So is your name here? - No.

No, he brought me here.

Now you are free.

You can travel to Wiesbaden to get involved.

Nothing stands in the way of your career now.

Why do you want to torture me now? I just lost my child.

My child you would have betrayed to that one!

After the 1st bleeding, you suggested an abortion.

You and your medical student who is milling.

I didn't want to put it away.

I wanted to keep it.

Look, Marianne.

This is Frank, my son.

I just visited him with Paula in Kimratshofen.

A clever, dear boy.

"I cruelly show her the pictures of Frank.

She cries out loud.

I could strangle man.

The whore shouldn't have a child.

My child went away from her because she didn't have a pure heart.

Out of me! Out! Out!

Now let her be used as a whore, throw the other one down.

You no longer belong to me. "

"What to look for in a description of the history of Marianne

should put the most careful weight :

The half-Jew is a businessman, the woman an opera singer,

the young man writer.

The businessman wishes her spirit

the writer to own her body . "

"I'm going to the lake with my bi.

We take a sunbath in the barge, which looks incomparable.

Narrow and delicate.

Then I teach her to swim. "

He taught me to swim?

Oh, the liar. I could swim.

I learned it when I was 13 years old.

Or 12 can be.

"We sit naked in the cabin.

She has a pure, natural way

an unprecedented grace and dignity in everything.

She says that when I speak , I look masculine, even the face.

In bed bubbly and cheeky and best when something happens .

I love her very much. "

There is a lot of poetic imagination.

* Music *

Just with the bi on the other side

and now with Marianne again.

You can’t let go either. - She loves Me.

She rightly broke.

He can not satisfy her sexually .

So what does she tell you? - Yes.

"Only you can satisfy me."

She has very nice words for it.

Thanks Ma. - Piglet!

A little more respect, please.

Talented Piglet!

I want Timbuktu and a child.

And a house and without a door.

And wants to be alone in bed and with a woman in bed.

At the same time?

Yes. That's just it.

Add the apples from the tree.

And the wood from the tree.

Don't lead an ax.

And the tree with flowers, the apples, foliage in close-up

in front of my window.

Is there anything else?

Yes, a manure to fertilize.

He wants everything. - Everything.

And why?

On the grounds that I only exist once.

And who is the servant?

(both) Always the others.

* Music *

Such a love kitsch.

But great feelings.

(Singing from record)? I cried in long, long nights.

Would be inferior to my grief.

If I hadn't found out so soon

that you have always cheated on me

Would have liked to give everything for you.

And yet, you, you never loved me. ?

(Narrator) Note Marianne Zoff, 1921:

"A great man can lie too, always lie. Why not?

In general, if you lie so that you believe everything yourself,

what you say is also art.

And who can lie even in summer when it is hot, very hot?

Brecht can do it, Bert Brecht can do it all. "

(hums)

? That day in the blue moon of September.

Silent under a young plum tree.

Then I held her, the silent, pale love,

in my arm like a sweet dream.

And above us in the beautiful summer sky

was a cloud that I saw for a long time. ?

(Man) Bronnen, there you are at last.

(Arnolt Bronnen) "I saw: I had never seen a human being.

I felt that what is coming can never end.

I immediately had the feeling of knowledge:

In that little nondescript person there,

that's where the heart of our time beats. "

? There have been many, many moons since that day

swimming quietly down and over.

The plum trees have cut down.

And are you asking me what about love? ?

(Arnolt Bronnen) "I only had one wish, this student feeling.

Love, great love in the world.

Give it to me as a friend. "

? I already know what you mean.

But her face, I really never know. ?

(Barbara Sources) And he asked:

"Love, love in the world, give it to me as a friend."

Something emphatic, a bit theatrical,

but there must have been some feeling in him

that opened up there.

Yes, they were 2 very different people

who, for whatever reason , have become very dressed.

Arnolt. - Bertolt.

Also with "T" at the end? - Yes I think so.

By the way, I'm in lower case.

What? Everything? - Yes, consistently.

(Barbara Bronnen) Brecht had the "Baal" in his pocket

and my father the "father murder".

Both were on the go.

They were poor swallowers who knew how to stylize something.

Brecht with his leather cap and long leather coat.

And my father in white suits ...

Brecht, Lord of the South Seas.

... or at all with suits and something more stately.

And the two of them were like asphalt cowboys,

that ran through the streets of Berlin .

Because they did n't even have money for the bus

and ran all night

and went from one premiere to another.

Brecht always had someone he knew somewhere

and if it was the stage manager or an actor,

who hoisted him into the troop.

And they didn't have to pay and saw it.

(Narrator) In Berlin , Brecht fails to try

To stage Bronnen's play "Father Murder" .

He gets his first own premiere in the Munich Kammerspiele.

The Paula. She looks smart.

I dedicated the piece to her.

"Drumming in the Night".

Man, your first own premiere. Your fame grows.

I owe it to the Feuchtwanger

that they play me.

And look there, next to his wife, that's the wedding ring,

the critic from the Berlin stock exchange courier.

(Caspar Neher) That depends on now?

Yes, whether you can spell my name tomorrow in Berlin , yes.

Spartacus or the power of love?

The carnage in the newspaper district?

Or is every man the best in his skin?

The bagpipe whistles, people die in the newspaper district,

the houses fall on them, the morning dawns.

They lie on the asphalt like drowned cats .

I am a pig and the pig is going home.

I put on a fresh shirt.

I still have my skin.

The shouting is all over tomorrow morning.

But I'm lying in bed tomorrow morning and multiplying.

So that I don't die out.

Doesn't look so romantic.

You usurer! Your cutthroat! You bloodthirsty cowards, you!

Now comes the bed, the big, white, wide bed.

Come over!

(Herbert Jhering) Incredible.

Yes, well.

The 24-year-old Bert Brecht

changed the poetic face of Germany overnight .

Point.

With Brecht is a new note, comma,

a new melody, comma, a new vision in time. Point.

No not arrived

just a new vision in time. Point.

"A literary sensational premiere.

The unusual success of Bert Brecht's comedy

'Drumming in the Night' was a new sign

that the real, the strong, if you dare, will always prevail. "

(Narrator) To the registrar

of the registry office Munich I, urgent.

Abbreviation of the deadline for marriage

by the writer Eugen Bertolt Brecht

with the opera singer Miss Marianne Zoff.

In the name and on behalf of the bride and groom

I ask you to shorten the deadline for the same,

that the marriage no later than Friday, the 3rd,

or Saturday, November 4th, 1922 .

Reason: The bride is in the 5th month of pregnancy.

Medical certificate in the facility.

2nd, the groom, through the successful premiere

of his play "Drumming in the Night"

known stage writer Bertolt Brecht

must prepare for the first performance in Berlin

Leave Munich.

He then goes to prepare the various

premieres all over Germany

on a longer travel life and can work without disruption

and big costs don't come back so quickly.

(Arnolt Bronnen) How long do you want to stay in Berlin this time?

I just got married in Munich. - Don't unpack.

I'm sorry, but I need my room tonight.

A miss?

And me, Arnolt?

You know Helene Weigel.

The talented?

She is currently playing for Jessner at the State Theater.

It wants to be something.

And she lives right across the street at Spichernstrasse 16.

Right at the top under the roof.

And you think I can do it so easily ... - Yes.

It is famous for its pastries.

Viennese cuisine.

For a night?

For a night.

Brecht.

Yeah.

Is my bed here for the night?

Who says that?

There are sources.

Well, come on in then.

Have a nice apartment there.

Do you like it? - A studio.

And the whole city in front of the window.

Theaters, publishers, newspapers, pubs and cinemas.

All friends, all enemies.

Want to conquer all of Berlin right away?

Whoever prevails in this city ...

... needs a couple of elbows, a few iron ones.

Ah, the Viennese pastries.

Say, are you actually looking for a place to sleep or a lunch table?

Both. - Sun

(Arnold Bronnen) "Brecht was not only imaginative, amusing, funny,

he also had a child's aura.

Attracted looks, feelings, touch attempts without wanting to. "

* Beat *

"He wanted what he saw, what he heard about."

You can help out,

if you want to lie soft out there .

Don't you think the mattress would be better there?

With me? - Mhm.

I just say ...

... a good night's sleep, sir.

It is cold.

No!

A blanket is just not enough for such a night. - No!

? That day in the blue moon of September,

silent under a young plum tree.

Then I held her, the silent, pale love

in my arm like a sweet dream.

And above us in the beautiful summer sky

was a cloud that I saw for a long time.

It was very white and tremendously high.

And when I looked up ...?

... she was never there.

It should stay that way.

What should stay that way?

Always a present. No tributes.

No tributes.

(Narrator) Paula Banholzer

marries the sales representative Hermann Gross in 1924 .

She is not allowed to consume Brecht's son .

(Walter Gross) And then my mother became too

rejected by my father's family .

She was stained with a shame , illegitimate child.

Brecht, then the great communist of the time,

everywhere in Germany, you know better than me, ostracized.

And my mother had a 7-year relationship with this man .

That was very bad for her.

(Narrator) Brecht's son Frank Banholzer

served as a soldier in Hitler's Wehrmacht.

He is killed in a cinema on the Eastern Front.

Partisans had blown up the building.

Thank you very much.

Now you can try your music

in your new headquarters.

For dinner you always come over to me in Gabelsberger.

How you got it done at the housing office.

Yes, you only know:

I am an actress by profession.

And there the poor official ...

Yes, he had to see that a pregnant woman

can't walk up those many floors.

Helli, you are just great. How you care.

Yes, I am already a usable person.

A very special one.

One like none.

One you never get around?

Can't and won't.

And certainly not now.

It should be a feast for the eyes. - Like the father.

Madame, the two of us are constantly and generously weighted to you.

Always a present.

No tributes.

It should stay that way.

It should stay that way.

So be careful with the steep stairs.

In fact, it's never that easy now.

* Beat *

Good day. They called me. Do you need a secretary?

Yes. Miss Captain. Miss Weigel.

I was the previous tenant. - Ah.

You are welcome.

Come.

So you speak the English language?

I used to be a teacher.

Then you could give me hours.

If you like it? Really?

There is another question. Can you write typewriter?

With all 10 fingers. - Very good.

You will also need them. The Kiepenheuer sits in my neck.

I will speak to him

that he pays you as my secretary.

Do you think he does? - Yes.

But...

Elisabeth, that ... that's not possible.

What can I call you?

Bess, my mother grew up in New York.

Bess.

Yes, that suits you.

And you suit me.

Wonderful.

(Elisabeth Hauptmann) And then we met.

And the 1st year, I know, there was nobody there.

Feuchtwanger came, but he had enough to do himself

to deal with Berlin.

Well, and it was then

a lot of talks between Brecht and me .

I can hardly imagine myself today

what a partner I was then

They give the new Chaplin in the marble house .

And here I translated the Kipling poems for you .

Very good.

What about Samson grains?

He will tell us his life.

Very good. You stenograph, I make a biography of it.

It could be an interesting story.

The Kortner must read from it before the fight in the sports palace.

That would be good. - The press is flying on something like that.

The Steyr works are holding a competition.

The winner gets a new car.

What is Berlin without your own car?

Bess.

We advertise.

Singing Steyr wagons.

We drive you like this without vibration ...

... that you believe ...

... you lie in a water. Drive us

Like his eyes follow my hand. That's incredible.

(Caspar Neher) Like his father.

And.

His brother, Walter, was visiting here.

He had to say "Miss Weigel" .

And that he's now our Stefan's uncle,

nobody told him that.

And the Marianne?

Hm? The bride is unsuspecting.

In family matters, he is very discreet. Ge?

(Marianne Zoff) Now tell me the truth.

You have something with the Weigel! - Who says that?

That has been brought to me.

These are lies.

And that you have a child with her are they also lies?

And that you always go to her for lunch?

And that you've already got used to the new child?

Marianne, you are very wrong.

I, I'm not doing well with the Weigel.

In the end you will still marry her.

Marianne, listen to me.

I am married to you and I only know one child.

And that's our hanne. Do you understand that?

But if you go with another man, it's over.

Do you really want with this comedian Theo Lingen

through the province as an artist couple?

Then there is a war between us.

Terrible situation: Here I, there a revolver.

Finally, here with valerian.

Nits, nice guy, but shoot the stage manager:

clear attempted murder.

Effective promptly, calm down.

(Narrator) November 22, 1927: Brecht is divorced from Marianne.

Reasons for the court's decision:

Because the witnesses refused to testify, it can be seen that

that the defendant with the actor Theodor Lingen

and the plaintiff with the actress Helene Weigel

have had sexual intercourse .

Brecht's attempt to Marianne as the only guilty adulteress

To have been convicted had failed.

* Music *

(Ernst Josef Aufricht) Brecht. Good thing I finally found you.

Erect my name.

I have just taken over the "Schiffbauerdamm".

Your own theater. - Yes.

Congratulation. - Thank you.

However, I am somewhat embarrassed. Um ...

Because I don't have a piece to open with.

A beer please. - Very much.

Hm.

"Joe Meat Chopper" is your piece.

It takes place in America on the Chicago Wheat Exchange.

We show the speculations with the bread of the world.

The crimes of capitalism.

Wheat market on stage, I don't know.

That's robbery. Exploitation of the poorest!

Look, upright, it's like stealing wages,

where the entrepreneurs add the value that the workers create

put in your own pocket.

I was thinking of something else.

The 1st crime from which everyone else derives.

I need something entertaining.

I might still have a little side work in progress.

I'm just working on it for fun, you know?

"Beggar's Opera".

What kind of book did you bring me with you earlier ?

"Beggar's Opera" von John Gay.

A beggar opera?

Strictly speaking: the Beggar's Opera.

"Beggar's Opera"?

The piece is 200 years old.

And it is still a sensational success today in London.

You breathe incorrectly, Dr. Schmitt said.

The remaining breath has to go out.

What is the piece about?

The staff: whores, beggars, thieves and a lawyer who is their fence.

Is it all about money?

Lying and cheating.

Very nice.

And what is it about?

This peachum has built a beggar empire in London .

To do this, he takes over what he finds on the street:

the independent artisans of beggarism, the talented laypeople.

His organization assigns them permanent places in the city.

The company provides the mask and costume.

An entrepreneur and his employees, yes?

So he owns the means of production,

and the beggar are his exploited.

There is an interesting figure, a certain macheath,

a mugger with a penchant for beautiful women and harlots.

And he lies and cheats one with the other.

And the 2nd with the 3rd

But then a real robber gets in his way.

And he steals his daughter.

It's good. It smells like theater.

That's exactly what the beggar opera is about .

The bourgeois way of life of the criminals.

And the criminal way of life of the citizens.

And citizens' predilection for robbers in the novels,

or now also in the cinema, arises from the error,

the robber was not a citizen.

And that is explained by the misconception,

the citizen was not a robber.

Right, the little thing here, you take it over, right?

Yes. Are you waiting! When can i read it

tomorrow in the afternoon

you can have the first scenes picked up from me.

Spichernstraße 16, right at the top under the roof.

Thank you.

Act 1, Scene 2: Such a robber is only a person of temper.

Macheath wants to celebrate wedding now.

In white. The bride insists.

The innocence. - Already gone.

Nevertheless: a bridal bed is needed.

The most beautiful day in a woman's life.

The equipment is still missing: the great feelings.

The operas sing up and down.

You learned it.

Puccini.

Yes exactly. That's exactly what I mean.

Now comes the moment of great empathy.

The old theater shows what it can do.

The love kitsch.

The parquet closes the eyes.

They swim away in the boxes.

And we're going to cut that now.

We show the fleshiness of bourgeois love.

The wallet and the filled seminal vesicle,

that is the basis.

Brecht, you are a materialist. - Yes.

And from below to the superstructure: the loving heart.

However, the robber lacks the marriage contract before the state and the altar.

And there is no document from the registry office

and no flowers on the altar,

love remains.

Or not?

Very good.

You should sing that now as a duet of lovers.

Weill have to make the music for us.

I enforce this when I get up.

Love lasts ...

(both) ... or does not last.

And the ...

(both) ... or that place.

* Music *

(Caspar Neher) Brecht will insert a lot of songs.

(Upright) light!

And that's why I'm building here in the background

an oversized fair organ.

I decorate the pipes with putti.

The music should finally get out of the orchestra pit,

out of this hiding place.

The musicians should no longer remain invisible.

You are sitting right here under the organ.

Everyone should see everything.

Everything high above the heads of the actors,

just like in a circus.

And that's how the conversions should go.

Yes, and here I'm going to pull a half-height curtain down.

The conversions take place behind, almost visible, almost open.

We emphasize that this is just theater.

The will will provide us with the music.

Weill? Kurt Weill?

Doesn't he do this strict atonal cat music?

I mean, he shooed the whole audience out of me .

No cat music.

The Weill writes us a snappy music.

Demanding, catchy songs with level.

Don't you want to take over the whole shop right away, Brecht?

The Weill has found a completely new tone.

He underlines the sentences with his music.

That's where I start to think.

? Soldiers live on the cannons

from cap to couch? Behar.

When it rained and it met

You a new breed, a brown or pale one,

you might make your beef steak tartare out of it. ?

It's good. I like it.

My wedding is taking place in this stable today

with Miss Polly Peachum, who followed me out of love

to share my further life with me.

Operetta! From top to bottom.

It's all too sweet.

Paulsen, say ...

This blue bow ...

What about it?

Could you perhaps do without it?

I would rather do without this role!

I don't have a reasonable appearance at the beginning of the piece anyway .

Then you have to write me something

so that it becomes clear who plays the main role here.

Well. Let's do him a favor.

The Weill and I introduce him through a morality, a bloody one.

And then he sings about his shameful acts.

Good, with a light blue bow tie.

* Music *

That's nice.

? And the shark has teeth.

And the shark... ?

And! And!

? ... he has teeth ...

(both) ... and he wears them on his face.

And Macheath has a knife.

But you don't see the knife. ?

It's good, Weill. It's good.

A nice ironic contrast.

This one sung almost tenderly ? has a knife? yes

But it can also be sharp, the word so that it cuts.

So: ? Has a knife and you can't see the knife. ?

It would be better if the Gerron sings the song directly as a bank singer.

Right at the beginning, in a foreplay, in the Soho market.

But Paulsen will be happy.

There Paulsen.

Operetta-Paulsen sneaks around on stage as Macheath

and listens to his crimes being sung.

* Music *

To the ramp.

* Music *

? And the shark has teeth

and he has it on his face.

And Macheath has a knife

but you don't see the knife. ?

* Music *

? Soldiers live on the cannons

from cap to couch? Behar.

When it rained and it met

You a new breed, a brown or pale one,

you might make your beef steak tartare out of it. ?

(Publikum) Bravo!

* Applause *

The newspapers predict a series of 500 performances.

500 performances in Berlin! Now you've conquered the city.

That is the glory!

Free!

And what about Munich, Leipzig, Dresden?

Hamburg? Cologne? Koenigsberg?

What about London and Paris?

New York!

And Moscow?

(Narrator) All in white.

Brecht and Helene Weigel with their children

Stefan and Barbara in their own summer house on Lake Ammer.

Brecht's and Marianne's daughter Hanne is also occasionally present.

Brecht?

? Love lasts or doesn't last ...?

"The poet Bert Brecht, who

married to the Berlin stage artist Helene Weigel ... "

* Music *

It is against the appointment.

"You have been burdened

that you just put on the safest shoulders.

You were overlooked like the closest thing. "

(Narrator) You were expected to have special insight,

So those who are closest to the work eat : the cooks.

The cooks. I know it very well.

"So don't put your name

on the never-ending list of the fallen. "

But that's the way it is. It was that hard.

It was hard.

Somehow for everyone.

But especially for those who were always there now. Is not it?

(Theo Lingen) What should you call it?

But he was someone who wanted property.

Wanted to have property, also from people.

He was always surrounded by good friends

also by women.

He didn't like to give them away either.

(Narrator) Marianne Zoff and daughter Hanne.

After her divorce from Brecht

she had married Theo Lingen in 1928 .

The popular actor managed

his Jewish wife, mother and Brecht's daughter

bring safely through terror in Nazi Germany.

Goebbels wanted for his entertainment cinema

not to do without the popular comedians .

What faces.

(Narrator) Maxim Gorki's novel "The Mother" in the cinema.

A film by Pudowkin

about the history of the Russian Revolution.

That would be a role for you.

I'm much too young for that.

(Narrator) Pelagea Wlassowa loses her son in the fighting.

It takes over the flag of the revolution.

* Music *

How they were hunted on May 1st.

How they were shot.

In front of our eyes, right in front of the Liebknechthaus.

That was bad.

I didn't think it was possible.

A demonstration shot up.

Afterwards, 20 people died in the newspaper.

The Social Democrats have their conscience.

No Helli, I mean ...

I mean how real it was all of a sudden.

How close.

(Narrator) Hyperinflation, Great Depression,

Mass unemployment.

All the misery

under the shiny surface of the Weimar Republic

Brecht sees it as a necessary systemic crisis of capitalism.

The writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin opened his eyes.

Together with Günther Weisenborn

edited Brecht Gorki's novel for the stage.

After the death of her son , the mother takes the lead.

It acquires the knowledge of the bourgeoisie,

she almost expropriates.

She sees through the connection

between ownership of means of production

in factories and exploitation.

So she takes the lead, becomes a mother for all sons.

What speaks against communism?

? It is reasonable, everyone understands it.

It is light.

You're not an exploiter.

You can understand him.

He is good for you, inquire about him.

The fools call him stupid.

And the dirty call him dirty.

He is against dirt and stupidity.

But we know it is the end of the crimes.

It is not madness, but the end of madness.

It is not chaos, but order.

He is the simple one

that is difficult to do. ?

"Tens of thousands of people in a senseless frenzy of cheers ..."

(Narrator) After Hitler came to power and the Reichstag fire

start the first waves of arrests.

Friends had warned Brecht of impending arrest.

Helene Weigel was also at risk.

For the Nazis, she was a Jewish Bolshevik.

(Man) your passports please.

"A major police action has just been initiated.

In different city areas from the basement to the ground,

Flat by flat.

An insane fear among the communists,

with the social democratic officials. "

Bertolt Brecht flees the Nazis with his family

initially to Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

In 1941 it went via Moscow to the port city of Vladivostok.

Shortly before the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union

the family gets a passage across the Pacific to San Francisco.

After 6 years in exile in America

Brecht was brought to Washington in October 1947 before the committee

loaded against un-American operations.

It is about the alleged communist infiltration

the Hollywood film industry.

My Name ist Bertolt Brecht. I'm born in Augsburg, Germany.

In 1898. I live in New York

Delay the answers.

Contact your translator.

You don't understand all the questions. - That is correct, sir.

(Ruth Berlau) Have you ever been

Member of the communist party?

None of the witnesses will answer this question.

(Narrator) He is preparing for questioning with a lawyer .

And the risk if I don't answer?

Then you go to jail.

For disregard from the committee.

His Danish colleague and lover Ruth Berlau

helps him.

Smoke your cigar. The others are Americans.

You are stateless.

Most will not resent you

if you're the only one answering the question.

(Mann) Have you ever been a member of the communist party?

Mr. Chairman, I have heard that my colleagues...

...considered this question not as proper...

But I'm a guest in this country ...

But I am a guest in this country...

... and does not want to deal with any legal issues.

...and I do not want to enter in any legal argument.

So I will answer your question fully as well I can.

And you were never in the party. No way. You don't have to lie there.

I was not a member or am not a member of any communist party.

Your answer is that you have never been a member

of the communist party. - That is correct.

Brecht wanted to go back to Germany and we knew it.

He didn't want to give up.

But on the other hand , he wanted to accomplish that

what he saw as his life's work :

to continue working on his work.

And for that he had to be in Germany.

(Narrator) The next day, Brecht leaves America for Europe.

In 1948 an invitation came from the German Theater in East Berlin

in the Soviet sector of the city.

Brecht's play "Mother Courage and Her Children"

should come on stage here.

With Helene Weigel in the leading role.

16 years.

And it's not just the houses that have been destroyed.

(Narrator) Premiere on January 11, 1949.

So do they want to watch us, people?

Was this breakdown enough to make you thirsty for something new?

You'll be watching and listening to me

when I show them the story of war and courage.

Yes, it's so completely unfamiliar to them.

But now you're just as nervous as before every premiere.

But it is such an important, such a special premiere.

You won't run out right away.

I'll take care of that.

And finally it is warmer inside than outside.

Look at the whole lot.

Then he is not completely forgotten .

If Brecht knew

how much you followed his arrival in the news.

America, Switzerland, Austria.

And now he's here in the theater.

(Narrator) Among the visitors of the directing student Egon Monk

and the actress Isot Kilian.

"The Courage marketer pulls with her car

through the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War.

Your fate is the fate of ordinary people. "

(Narrator) The marketer does business with war.

In doing so, she loses everything, including her children.

Many out there have also lost a lot.

And now they feel like victims.

Go out there and show them how it happened.

You are to blame, like the courage.

No pity!

Maybe then they will understand how it can be done differently.

Thank you.

Like all good things, war is difficult at the beginning.

If it then flourishes, it will be tough.

Then the people shrink back from peace

like the dice before quitting.

Because then they have to count what they have lost.

But first they are afraid of war.

(Egon Monk) When people, when the play starts, the advertisers,

before the car of the Courage starts, in a completely unfamiliar one for me

talked cynical and funny about war and business.

So I realized about such sacred goods

like the nation and the life of the nation,

can be talked like that, and you can laugh at it too.

All of my points of view changed

quite apart from that this performance

at certain points went through to the bone,

like I had never seen before in the theater.

? Die Toten ruhn.

And what hasn't died yet

that socks now.

With its lice and animals,

Baggage, cannon and team,

let it march into battle,

that's how it wants good shoes. ?

And what did I say to myself personally? You have to do that!

(Narrator) Brecht decides to move from Switzerland

in the Soviet sector of Berlin.

He moves to a villa on Weißensee.

Wait, wait, wait.

Jessas.

(Narrator) For him it was the right place to start again.

On the right side of the story, at the right moment.

Va there was a state-funded ensemble here,

with which he could try out his pieces .

First as a permanent guest in the Deutsches Theater,

but with the hope of owning a house.

The best is the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

How tiring it is to be angry.

(Narrator) Where he last worked with the "Dreigroschenoper"

had had a worldwide success.

Now we unpack the escape baggage thoroughly .

The suitcases were always on top of the cupboard.

For the next escape.

Galileo.

He'll have to wait a little longer.

The Carrar, the Puntila, the chalk circle.

How much time will I have left?

Who will help us? We won't make it alone.

They come up to you.

Just as if they had been waiting, whether the Brecht still exists.

The old ones who survived, the friends like the Cas

and the wedding ring and the young people who are now reporting.

They are not messed up by the kitsch of the Goering Theater.

The seamstress comes from Zurich for the Puntila.

Little Lutz from Basel also agreed to me.

(Regine Lutz) Dear audience, the fight is tough,

but the present is already thinning out .

How young she is.

I will have to take care of them. Everything! There is nothing there!

Lavish!

And and and!

The Berlau is just around the corner.

Your suitcase got in our luggage.

Please do n't give her new hopes!

She should live here and work on the ensemble.

I promised her.

In America she thought you were going to marry her.

You know what i mean.

Your suitcase.

The Brecht is there.

Brecht is exhausted, he needs his rest now.

I work with him. - Yes, you can take photos for us.

Und die Stücke dokumentieren für die Modellbücher.

Du kannst nicht mal einen Text fehlerfrei abtippen.

Und du, Helli, als du für Brecht in Dänemark unbedingt selber

abtippen wolltest, wegen die Grete Steffin und Brecht.

Brecht?

Solche Arme hattest du da: alles bandagiert.

Und die Regie ist mir auch versprochen.

Brecht?

Wir sind jetzt wieder in Deutschland.

Nicht mehr in Dänemark.

Ihr wart fremd damals in Skovsbostrand. In Exil!

Da war ich nützlich für euch.

Wegen dem Theater, der Visa, wegen dem Auto

und das spezielle Essen für Brecht.

Du hast des Geld gehabt.

Meinen Mann, den Doktor Lund, hab ich wegen Brecht verlassen.

Brecht hat mir diesen Ring gegeben.

Unterwegs. Schweden, Finnland, Amerika.

Immer sollte ich bei ihm bleiben.

Helli, der Brecht liebt mich.

Und ich bin seine Frau.

* Rumpeln *

Brecht!

Brecht! - Ruth, sei jetzt vernünftig!

Vernunft! Immer die Brecht-Vernunft!

Du hast es versprochen, dass wir jetzt zusammen leben.

Du wirst weiter am Theater mitarbeiten. - Mit dir!

Wir sind jetzt im sozialistischen Deutschland, Ruth.

Wir arbeiten am Aufbau einer neuen Gesellschaft.

Und wann beginnt unser Leben?

Komm, ich fahr dich nach Haus.

(Sprecher) Aber wie ich die Strecke,

schreiben Sie an Ihre Mutter und Ihren Vater,

von Zoo nach Friedrichstraße fuhr, glaube ich, brechen zu müssen.

(Lutz) "You have no idea.

Whole house facades have nothing in the back.

Giant bunkers stand diagonally in the air like sinking ships. "

It didn't scare me in any way.

No, I took everything, everything, everything I took.

The worst could happen, I still would have said

prefer the worst and play theater,

than living in peace at home.

(Narrator) Brecht works with his new Berlin ensemble

the "Hofmeister" by Lenz, a piece from 1774.

Regine Lutz plays the fancy.

(Lutz) I believe that God created me ...

... including all creatures.

Regine, this flirtatious game with the court master,

make that a little bit clearer.

The noble girl

is not interested in religious education.

It is a carrion.

Yes, that's the other side of the simple treat.

She loves playing with fire.

(Narrator) Brecht had his old friend Caspar Neher

brought in for the stage design and co-direction.

His! - Yes.

As Hofmeister you earn 60 thalers a year.

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

One could think in terms of character.

But it's the social order,

that makes you cowardly.

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

Lessing as a librarian: 600 thalers a year.

The solo dancer of the Dresden Court Opera: 6,000 thaler.

A cook: 10 thalers.

(Berlau) And a cattle maid?

A cattle maid? One taler a year.

And the king's whore?

Watch out now, the beloved of August the Strong:

100,000 thalers a year!

Yes, you see, Gaugler, that shapes your character.

Therefore, make the scratching foot and hunch before rule.

But you are baring your teeth.

Yes, most obedient servant! Most obedient servant!

The devil should get you! The devil should get you!

The French beheaded their king.

The Germans bent down.

Not a revolution.

This Hofmeister will castrate himself

to keep his job.

We dig that up.

We want to change that.

Regine, the seduction again, please!

I believe that God created me.

Yes, that's right.

And I'm going back with that? - Well, you're escaping.

Now the balance of power turns .

The student examines her teacher.

I believe that God created me.

It wouldn't have been! Velvet...

(Lutz) ... including all creatures.

My body ... (Lutz) My body and soul ...

Body too ...

... eyes, ears and all limbs, reason and all senses.

And still ... - And also get clothes and shoes,

Eating and drinking, house and yard, woman and child,

Fields, cattle and all goods. - Yes Yes Yes!

Now she is making fun of him.

She is his student. - She is a woman!

And you, you are in the state

a filled seminal vesicle for weeks and months.

Don't forget that.

The flesh, the desire, the forbidden, arises in you.

Sex life is not for them in this world

understand? But is there.

Du Aas.

(Lutz) I never had the ambition to sleep with Brecht.

No, he smelled too sharp and too horrible for me .

You fight down what arises in you.

It is the predicament of a poor devil who has to choose

between sex life and professional life.

Yes. And we can no longer demand that from us today.

(everybody is laughing)

(Lutz) He was a very quiet, shy,

silent lover if you will.

I was wearing this hairstyle.

And then over the hair, so light.

But always ... I always say the word "disembodied".

It was always "disembodied", so tender, so gentle.

(Wekwerth) The Lutz was a revelation for me at the time.

When she was in bed with the actor.

The picture was so impressed on me.

(Lutz) And the success was incredible.

I checked the letters.

And then we had 54 curtains and then the iron one too.

It's hard to imagine

but the German Theater was really raging at the time.

(Wekwerth) I was a new teacher, as you called it, for math.

I wrote this final verse on the wall:

"Teachers and students of a new era,

consider his servitude so that he can free you from it. "

Hello.

Back in Skovsbostrand you showed me the stars.

And there was also the cassiopeia.

Look, our eyes meet up there

wherever we are, you said

And then you kissed me.

Your eyes smiled.

"Everybody dig. I love you.

And it will be unchanged, even in 10, also in 20 years. "

Now you don't see me anymore.

And my lap gets cold from below.

So cold.

That goes up in my head.

So cold.

* Martinshorn *

(Berlau) "Dear Professor,

but I didn't want to take my life .

I drank strong vodka and played ophelia,

so that Brecht could stay with me one night

what he had promised me for so long. "

(Wekwerth) That was terrible because he ...

He occasionally went to Ruth for dinner

and kept renewing hope.

He couldn't separate.

(Monk) And of course there was a lively erotic life

not just near Brecht, but in general.

There were a lot of young people of different sexes

and they lived.

And one of Brecht 's teachings, Brecht's presence

even mediated, was to live in any case,

Not?

* Music *

And of course that applied to himself.

Of course it was known in the ensemble

that he was not just a poet, but a man.

And he was also aware that his closeness made him productive.

These women also played differently.

My beautiful lady, may I dare

to offer my arm and escort to her?

(Käthe Reichel) I'm neither miss, neither beautiful,

can go home without escort.

(Crooked) This is a wonderfully beautiful child, who lit something in me.

She is so good and virtuous and a bit snappy at the same time.

Yet again! Tell him.

Crooked, if you suddenly walk towards the Gretchen,

then she can make a little move , an escape somewhere.

Listen, Pohl.

The students of the master class have to appear on time.

Even the lyricists! It's working class money!

Sorry.

(Wekwerth) Rülicke was the girl for everything

but a very personable figure.

He also had a short relationship with her .

He had that together with Palitzsch.

The Fist cannot do that, the Misses.

(Crooked) He's a little shy. - No, a little cool.

I see.

Can't I already show in the scene

that I like him?

Then I have a better connection to the next one.

In the sentence "I'm neither miss, neither beautiful",

there you take a few steps.

(Lutz) Then he had such a silly walk.

He tripped the way a girl never trips.

But he tripped in his gray suit

the hat in front ...

Then stop and look back.

And then so jerkily he turned around.

Something happened, do you understand? You can feel it.

This is an encounter that will change your life.

That was not...

The proletarian on the Reichel was not something

what he wanted for Gretchen

but he wanted that for himself.

Very rough: for his bed he wanted it!

(Reichel) ? It was a king in Thule.

He would have received a golden cup from his cave

on her death bed.

He preferred the cup.

Drinked up with every feast.

His eyes went over

as often as he drank from it. ?

And.

So easy.

That is nice, Kathe.

Four? My name is Waltraut.

A star must have a real name.

A star? - Yes. You can do it.

Oh, Brecht.

* Music *

By the way, you urgently need to take the grace.

He drinks too much. He's drinking.

Soon he gets drunk in your imagination.

He is sick. - There are these pills.

This Antabus.

They brought all of their wounds from this war.

Who is completely healthy?

Your young people too , you have to keep an eye on it.

The evening direction was again not occupied.

The Pohl should have been there. It is now missing on the rehearsals.

Just tell the Rülicke.

Where's the girl?

Nothing is done in the kitchen, not even washed up.

I sent it home.

Ah, look there.

The puppet was visiting you. - We rehearsed.

She really didn't have a good education.

Do you do that personally now?

She was twice emigrated with her parents ,

the furniture on the street.

She dreams of it at night.

We have also been taken out

from Germany, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and America.

The Waltraut may not know that.

I don't even want to dream of that.

Look, Helli, wost is talking about it.

Waltraut is actually not a nice name

for an actress.

And.

Waltraut Reichelt, that's the name of the child.

Kathe, Kathe Reichel. Sounds better.

Well, child, how do you like that?

Nice.

Ah! Cursed!

(Monk) That there were several women

with whom he lived and whom he loved

was a matter of course

that was not thought about for long .

? Because we are young, the world is so beautiful

because we go forward with confidence . ?

? The May has come... ?

(Narrator) The direction was just bad fun,

which went so far that on the eve of May 1st the drunk students

roared in Auerbach's cellar: "May has come."

A similar mockery of the German folk song

has never been seen before on our stage .

The world went under. A disaster.

Monk should ...

"The young Monk is probably still too young to know

what he did to Labor Day with it. "

(Radio announcer) "And Faust, no, this Faust.

A Prometheus who wants to snatch fire from the gods ?

But not the trail!

This is a narrow-minded professor, a helpless generous,

a psychopath.

Is this supposed to be Goethe's storming fist?

Arbitrariness of the text, distortion due to alleged ideas,

Disfigurement of the figures.

That means nothing else

than that the work empties its humanistic content,

is deprived of its meaning.

You have to ask yourself: Isn't it time

that the Berliner Ensemble is reviewing his work? "

And, monk?

Do you want to change something at the director?

So I see no reason.

Yes, stay the way it is.

I ask you. It comes from the top.

Think about it. Is it worth it?

Apparently certain people up there understood exactly

what we did there

Not a humanistic earth striker, Faust,

no, a lousy teacher who wants Gretchen in bed.

And that's exactly what it meant.

But remember: the theater's numbers.

Our bread donors are the workers. - I see the same.

Yes, what's up?

I was in Pohl's apartment. He disappeared.

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

Could have been picked up.

(Pohl) I became the victim of an agent provocateur,

who had reported me.

I would have worked for American intelligence.

I was arrested out of the blue

and didn't know why.

If I imagine my father like this ...

That was such a small, actually helpless little man.

He wasn't much bigger than me and a bundle of nerves.

And I can imagine that it didn't take much

to make him crazy.

(Pohl) Interrogations were from 6 am to 10 pm.

During this time you were not allowed to sleep.

They came at half past eleven.

And that went until 5 a.m.

And for 14 days, and then I collapsed.

So I said: write what you want, I'll sign.

Monk.

How did you decide?

Will you stage the new play "Katzgraben" for us?

It's not working.

So.

This place "Katzgraben", the problems there in the LPG ...

The expropriation, the socialization of land.

Monk, that's a revolutionary act.

But this piece does not show the reality in the GDR.

What do you mean what it shows?

The new agricultural production cooperative

in undisturbed happiness on the tractor.

Socialists have to ask: what is?

What is here in the GDR? Before they say what and how it should be.

I learned from you. - I know.

But nothing better is currently.

(Ulla Monk) It must have been a happy coincidence.

More than just students and masters.

It was more. It was a great affection.

(Monk) I wanted to get out of the GDR, which prescribed for me

what I had to read and what I had to express.

It was already noticeable that the ensemble didn't last forever

would remain the island it was in the early years.

Ah Juan!

No! No! No!

What no?

You should not cry!

Leave your tears at home, they don't belong on the stage!

Do not belong therefore?

And the mother who just lost her son?

It starts to think.

And now she is deciding to fight fascism.

You should show that. - With sadness. - No!

You shouldn't feel sorry for yourself! Distance!

Your feelings, that's private.

It's totally unprofessional!

Show how the Carrar with every shock that shakes it

hardens, becomes dull!

And then in the end it comes to life

and gives the comrades the hidden rifles.

Take out the guns, get ready, José.

The bread is ready too.

(Wekwerth) The Weigel was an actress,

she cried very quickly. And Brecht didn't like that.

And then he got pretty rough.

And then she let me come to her

cried bitterly.

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

And otherwise she has that with a raised stoicism

treated, but which, in my opinion, has displaced a lot.

(Narrator) Helene Weigel leaves the villa on Weißensee.

She moves into her own apartment near the theater.

(Wekwerth) The Weigel, one can only say, is one of the boldest and ...

... the most interesting characters I've ever met.

(Gifted) Weigel made the Berlin Ensemble.

Brecht did that by doing all of his work,

has taken over the organizational work .

(Wekwerth) Apart from the fact that she managed the theater brilliantly,

to social conditions, so that ...

She took care of hairstyles for women,

who took care of apartments anyway, also helped with rehearsals

and basically made life possible for Brecht .

She was the mother of the whole. Yes, it was.

And she did everything unpleasant .

She got everything out of the way of Brecht .

(Geschonnek) That was the pillar,

on which the whole theater rested.

Without the Weigel

the Berlin Ensemble would probably have been nothing.

Hello.

Treat? - Yes?

Where are you?

Here in Weißensee.

Big and lonely since you moved out.

If you couldn't stand ...

And.

It's not just the stories of women.

If you question me as an actress ?

Cave?

Hello?

(Pike) Yes, I was always wondering:

How is that possible?

I only explain it to myself because she always said that

she was convinced of Brecht's genius from the beginning .

She was convinced that this is a special person

and that it should be promoted.

* Music *

The hill got it for me.

From a painter who's gone west.

Were you too lonely in Weissensee?

I wanted to get closer to the theater.

And I'm here for the theater.

Introduce yourself:

The Schiffbauerdamm goes to the barracked People's Police.

What? - Central Committee decision.

I just got it from Elfriede's office.

They didn't want to tell you. - This is insane!

Operettas and other "patriotic tasks".

The party wants it that way. - This is a mess!

We develop the most advanced theater in the world.

And they don't understand it. What else should I do?

Against a ZK decision?

Have done this, they can change again.

We are also a nuisance to some up there.

Still a guest in the Deutsches Theater is not a condition.

If I don't get my own theater , I will mine here.

And me?

(Speaker) To the Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl:

You may have heard that in West Germany

the nonsensical rumors about disagreements between me

and the government of the German Democratic Republic

opened again very intensely .

The takeover of the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm

by the Berliner Ensemble,

that is known far beyond Germany ,

would my solidarity

document clearly with our republic .

Here is RIAS Berlin. A free voice from the free world.

(Radio announcer) "... appeared this afternoon

a delegation of demonstrators to the RIAS.

She reported on the course of today's events

and explained that she hadn't come

when demonstrators demand a discussion

would have been granted with Ulbricht or Grotewohl .

Since they were unable to

to express the will of the workers

if they had taken the path to the RIAS,

to make their demands heard. "

Kathe, turn on the radio.

Something is getting ready.

The construction workers of Stalinallee

report their demands on the radio.

(Radio announcer) ... immediate reduction in the cost of living.

No, of course at the RIAS.

(Radio announcer) ... free and secret elections.

Free and secret elections.

Those are the demands from the West.

Yes. The old mask of capitalism.

"The demonstration train is approaching."

(Reporter) Where do you work? (Worker) Henningsdorf. Everything there.

When does the shift start in the morning? - 6:10 a.m.

And what gave the impetus?

Has the decision been made this morning or yesterday? - Early today.

Was the job immediately stopped?

Have any stayed? - No nobody.

(Elisabeth Hauptmann) No news.

* Music on the radio *

This is a mistake.

Why do we send such brawn instead of information?

You would have to let them know.

I could go out to the station.

We could contribute to the program. Tell them.

"Cheers from 5,000 throats of the demonstrators,

which houses HO around the Columbiahaus . "

(Reporter) What happened up there?

(Man) They surrendered immediately.

Thrown away the weapons.

A good opportunity to show that you belong.

Now that might be the right moment

to join the party. - To you?

The working class party demands discipline.

But it must also be able to learn.

The party is ready for it.

That is exactly what Ulbricht has

said last night during his speech in the Friedrichstadtpalast.

And now it's in the ND.

"It is now the decisive factor, explained Walter Ulbricht,

that the party connects closely with the masses

and listens more carefully to the criticism of the working people. "

(Narrator) Elisabeth Hauptmann, she has worked for Brecht again since 1949.

(Wekwerth) Then he instructed Elisabeth Hauptmann and me

I got the boss on duty to go to the radio .

He said that there was typical abdominal pain again

an intellectual like Brecht ...

There is no need to worry.

Completely normal, we do not change the radio program.

And the captain roared so

this gentle Elisabeth Hauptmann.

You are stupid, she said.

The situation is so dangerous, it is on the brink.

The existence of this country with all its advantages.

Werter Genosse Ulbricht.

History becomes revolutionary impatience

to pay tribute to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

"The great debate with the masses

about the pace of socialist construction

becomes a sighting and a safeguard

of socialist achievements. "

(Narrator) Brecht wishes

a discussion of the regime with the masses.

The party should learn from them.

The party newspaper, however

just publish the result set.

It is a need for me

To you at this moment my attachment to the

To express the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.

Yours Bert Brecht.

(Narrator) Brecht does not go public

protest against this shortening.

"Right now we're seeing the tank."

"Stop shooting!"

"From 1:00 p.m. in the Soviet sector of Berlin

the state of emergency is imposed. "

(Isot Kilian) Then give me the personal secretary

by Comrade Grotewohl.

(Man) what is it about

I have to bring you Brecht's suggestions and letters.

(Man) Come to the guard.

We didn't get through with the car .

(Man) Who is talking? - Isot Kilian.

Professor Wolfgang Harich's wife. Do you understand? - Yes.

(Man) See you soon. - See you soon.

Well done.

"The world looks to Berlin.

For the first time since the existence of the German Democratic Republic

tens of thousands of East Berliners protested in one

spontaneous demonstration against the SED regime's tyranny. "

(Radio announcer) "The riots are the work of provocateurs

and fascist agents of foreign powers

and their helpers

from German, capitalist monopolies.

The guilty are held responsible

and severely punished.

The workers and all honest citizens are urged

to seize the provocateurs and hand them over to the state organs. "

"How shamefully Brecht bowed to the terror system

proves the address to the SED General Director.

It is time the West German stages,

have Brecht's dramas and productions on their program,

facing the question of whether they are a partisan

want to continue to give the floor to the tyranny . "

(Narrator) On the stages in West Germany

A boycott of Bertolt Brecht's plays begins .

(Böttcher) I do not deny that agents were smuggled in,

but with the provocateurs you make it a little too easy for yourself.

The stage workers have a minimum wage,

can't buy anything in the HO stores .

You are dirty.

The workers go to work with a jam sleeve.

You brought this up to the unions,

were always put off.

Nothing happened!

The high salaries had extra shops.

And then another layer in between.

And the HO shops were for the people.

And then of course hatred developed.

Party and state leadership only ever drive in the car.

Your women are not in line.

If someone speaks to them with badges ,

then he never says his real opinion.

That's right, yes.

No, that was very different for us. That was...

... a discussion that was not so open to us ...

And that shows the quality of this ensemble,

that they allowed something like that.

The demands for another government

for free elections, these are real demands of the population.

Nobody believes this government anymore.

(Radio announcer) "The strikers came by, furious,

and shouted: We want free elections ... "

A question:

Do you know what such a choice would bring?

Now and now. Who knows that?

This demand for free choice

would not make any sense to us in my opinion .

(Narrator) He didn't want bourgeois democracy at all . - Nah.

Brecht wanted the dictatorship of the proletariat.

I do not think so,

that the human population is far enough from narcissism.

The government we have now works in a fighting stance

against these elements threatening peace around the world.

(Speaker) The discussion leader Erwin Geschonneck

ends the meeting with a warning:

Always remember

that another government is entering a new world war.

Oh God, yes.

And where did that end?

We are the people.

(Narrator) Maybe this was June 17th ...

That was the first big awakening within ideology at all.

I believe.

Then '56 Hungary was added.

And then I said I have to go now

I can't stand it any longer.

* Music *

After the uprising of June 17th

left the secretary of the Writers' Union

hand out leaflets in the Stalinallee ,

on which it was read that the people

lost confidence in the government .

Wouldn't it be easier then, the government dissolved the people

and chose another one?

(Pike) There was no real department yet

I want to say, state security,

that would have been applied to artists .

That was what the party actually did

actually through their comrades.

(Wilhelm Girnus) It is the task of art

to participate positively in the building of socialism.

But it doesn't help you if now in the film, in the theater

there are more workers and farmers.

The problems and contradictions in our society

have to be shown

then you can find the right solutions.

Conflicts can certainly be shown.

The solutions should always be optimistic.

(BK Tragelehn) Whereby Girnus was similar to Ulbricht.

Such a proletarian iron skull, the self-taught

has taught himself a lot and is firmly convinced, that's how it is.

Only the worst traditions.

We are the true heirs in the GDR

the humanistic tradition in German history.

From Luther to Lessing, Goethe. Our classics ...

Marx, Engels ... - Pieck and Ulbricht.

I beg your pardon?

Pieck and Ulbricht do their job.

Let me make mine

And for that I need my own theater.

As an eternal guest and subtenant in the Deutsches Theater,

that can not go on like this.

And how do you want

with your, yes, deliberately poor theater of disillusion

our working people win?

In addition, in this foreign language.

I win it.

I trust people.

And to think of their great desire.

(Girnus) "Dear Comrade Walter Ulbricht,

despite Brecht’s misconception about this

I would suggest elastic treatment of the matter

and seriously consider the Berliner Ensemble and Brecht

to provide a theater .

I also hope to have an educational effect

from this act.

Then he will have to prove that he is able

the audience, especially the working people,

to win through his theater.

He cannot do that with the previous means .

So you don’t have to give him some little squeeze,

but give a real theater,

with it its primitivism and puritanism

can't apologize for lack of technology . "

He proposes,

to give Brecht the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm.

But he has in his head that it is arranged for him

that he will die.

"The creator of our plans,

the man with a sharp eye and quick decision,

he, comrade Walter Ulbricht. "

Tell me, Isot, I have a question:

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

I mean, is there anything that bothers you?

When I'm shouted at

Really uncontrolled and horrific.

I ask you at the theater ... It happens.

If someone has not done something, there can be many reasons.

That's right.

And otherwise?

It's all this unpredictability with you.

Unpredictability? - Your feelings.

Peaceful, like now

and then suddenly angry and loud. Sometimes like this; sometimes like that.

You may not even know what the colleagues in the theater are saying.

Brecht comes before law.

Where are we now?

You know I have a small country house by the lake.

No.

No?

Unfortunately no time.

Do you want to put me out now?

Isot, I will never put you out.

And I will never be you again ...

... roar.

Promised?

Man can be changed. - Brecht too?

Have you gone insane?

Do you want to quit?

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

My father says who still stands by you now

must your attitude ... - What do you know about my attitude?

You can't stand on your own two feet!

And.

And I tell you:

You will be shipwrecked at every theater !

Yes, and he was right there.

You don't even know how theater plays.

Nothing is there. Nothing at all!

You are completely dependent!

You can only gain recognition at all

when everything and everything around you is tailored to you!

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

That was the reason, but now I definitely didn't want to.

What about your heart?

She wanted to quit.

(Narrator) How did you decide after the roar?

Of course I stayed there.

Look here.

* Music *

We made it.

Now you have your theater.

The Schiffbauerdamm ...

Now the senior manager remains .

And the woman director finally has a permanent house.

I thank you, Helli.

* Music *

It's the right size.

And the right location.

And the right story.

* Music *

You know, now the company decided

and now it's done with fun.

(Actress) So we’re sitting relaxed on the grass, Michel,

until the good grush has bought a pot of milk.

Can I have a jug of milk, grandfather,

and maybe a flatbread? - Milk? We have no milk.

Why is the farmer so dismissive?

Why does he want to sell milk at price?

If the farmer still had all his goats,

he would also have a lot of milk.

Then he could be more generous.

Yes, if we portray it that way, the audience will also look

with a different look at the people on stage.

The audience can also change

when conditions change.

This bourgeois chatter of character

that breaks through again and again like the grease stain in your pants,

is still a bloke.

Michel, did you hear that?

3 piastres. - Michel. - We cannot afford that.

(Narrator) 10 years ago, 1944.

New York, 57th Street.

In Ruth Berlau's apartment.

Joint work on the "Caucasian Chalk Circle".

A maid is on the run.

It saves a child.

It is the governor's child.

She loves the child from the start. But why does she love it?

Yes you are right. Something is missing.

If she gets engaged to the soldier before fleeing,

she wants a child from him. - But it's not there.

Then she takes the foundling.

Little Michel is also a child of love.

It's good. That's true.

We have to try again. Pull ...

And I didn't even steal it like the grush.

Our Michel ...

Don't talk about it so much.

Not everyone in Santa Monica needs to know right away,

that you have a child from Brecht. Hm?

I can't be your ghost.

The whore of a classic.

Ruth, be sensible.

I can't be sensible like you.

We work and love each other, that keeps us together.

For socialism that is coming.

I know he's coming.

Stay together?

Yes. - Forever?

(Angelika Hurwicz) Pull, think of the 3 piastres.

There is nothing in it, but you mean you drink and that is something.

But feel it. You say it's just a muscle.

But why does it hurt so much sometimes?

(Narrator) Brecht's family lives in Los Angeles.

Ruth Berlau's apartment

is the small New York office for him .

Ruth calls and negotiates for him

she photographs Brecht's texts and lays with her 35mm photos

a kind of microfilm archive of his manuscripts.

Brecht was afraid that in a war

or his work could be lost on the run .

* Music *

I, as a judge, have an obligation

that I choose a mother for the child .

I will do a rehearsal.

Schauwa, take a piece of chalk and draw a circle on the floor.

It takes too long.

Put the child in it!

Claimant and accused, stand next to the circle, both!

Holds the child by the hand.

The right mother will have the strength

to pull the child out of the circle .

(Narrator) Santa Monica 1944.

The Brecht family house. * Phone ringing *

Hello?

No, Mr. Brecht is not here.

What do you say? The baby of Mrs. Berlau is dead?

The baby was in serious condition and died.

Yes.

And Mrs. Pearls?

(Narrator) After surgery on the uterus,

that Ruth Berlau had in Los Angeles,

there was a premature birth.

The child died.

Thank you for the information.

Ruth Berlau then stayed with Brecht in Santa Monica for a while,

somewhat away from the family home.

Then he arranges her return trip to New York.

"And that you can become more independent in New York,

regardless of me, and find again to write,

is also an opportunity for you.

Don't worry about other women.

And come back as soon as possible.

I love you."

(Berlau) "I thought he wanted to get rid of me.

And I wanted to be reasonable.

But then I found this letter

which he had put in my pocket at the station . "

I want to be exactly how you want it to be.

(Narrator) In New York, she breaks down under this conflict.

No, help me!

Ruth is admitted to the psychiatry.

And so the Court found

who is the real mother.

(Resting) Ah! - Ruth!

Wekwerth ...

Come on, I'll take you home.

Let me. Let me go!

"The third thing".

It's too late now.

Now you are looking for the young meat.

Once again!

So a real hug again.

Yes, where there is something going on. Come over!

I'm fine, Helli.

(Kilian) Brecht and me.

Yes, we were closer together in May '54 .

It turned out that way.

And then he said I should decide

how close we want to be and whether I want to come to him.

* Music *

(Lutz) He was far too cowardly to look at you directly.

Then he looked past you a bit .

It was not yes and not no.

He left the decision to the other.

I am here.

I am glad that you came.

We waited a long time.

(Lutz) It was that gentle voice ...

And now?

... when he said Regine, Regine with the "R",

yes, it had charm.

And once he said: you are a lovely girl.

Ui, ui, ui, I thought, the greatest danger of default.

He probably expected me to indulge.

* Rippling water *

If.

No more isot or isotch?

No: Ise.

And Helli?

It is reasonable, it will understand.

Do not worry.

(Narrator) Helene Weigel

had since moved into Chausseestrasse.

In the apartment directly above Brecht.

And there are also these, sometimes unbearable for me

Women's stories there, with these stupid women’s rooms,

where I never understood what he got from it.

So for me some of these ladies were incomprehensible.

You know, when I talk about my relationship with Brecht

should say something and not talk about it,

it would be a silence.

Because that was important, of course.

But it wasn't that important .

It's not that easy to talk about these things

and not respond to the other women.

Because of course ...

It was a great love affair.

It all hurt very, very.

It wasn't easy.

(Narrator) summer 1954.

The Berlin Ensemble in Paris.

An invitation to the international theater festival

ins Théâtre "Sarah-Bernhardt".

At the same time a visit to the cosmopolitan city of culture.

A special flair lies over the city.

The shops with the beautiful clothes,

the booksellers on the Seine, the painters on Montmartre,

the bistros and the Louvre.

(Kilian) Brecht came from Berlin with his car.

We look forward to the reunion.

(Narrator) Isot Kilian is also there.

Gerda Goedhart behind the camera

says goodbye to her friend Angelika .

? And what hasn't died yet

that socks now. ?

(Barthes) Courage believes that war is necessary for her life.

But what is put in front of us

happens outside of us.

And the moment this distance is given,

we see, we know that the war is not fateful.

That is Brecht's great contribution.

His theater saves a sermon

and it makes it much more powerful.

(Narrator) The Berliner Ensemble wins the 1st prize of the festival.

And at home a slightly better press and increasing value

as the figurehead of the GDR.

"In the sports hall on Stalinallee

celebrate children from all sectors of Berlin

with the free German trade union federation. "

(Narrator) With the 1954 Christmas amnesty

comes Brecht’s master student,

the poet Martin Pohl, released after 2 years.

(Pohl) And I had the Weigel on the line and she said to me:

Oh Pohl, are you back? It's nice.

As if I came from the hospital , didn't I ?

Then come to us right away.

We have a dress rehearsal today, where you'll also meet the Brecht.

And it was like being part of the crew again.

That was not the case.

And many thanks for the letters, also to the prosecutor.

So I had the feeling that I still belong.

That I was n't completely gone.

It was protection.

Nice that you are back. Enjoy the meal.

Thanks Helli. - Thank you.

Pohl, now tell me exactly what happened to you.

I signed up not to speak about the case.

Tell me anyway. I want to know.

The interrogations at night ...

Deprivation of sleep during the day ...

I collapsed.

I then said to the interrogator:

Write down what you want. I sign.

So you were convicted of lying .

You admitted something you didn't do.

But everyone knew that.

I will now contact the judicial authorities

to the Attorney General.

I will do your rehabilitation.

For God's sake. Don't do that!

Otherwise I 'll be in jail tomorrow.

You have to forget Pohl.

Read the ballad

Oscar Wilde wrote on the penitentiary in Reading.

There he was sitting because of homosexuality.

And...

... write your ballad.

(Narrator) The court had imposed him as an atonement :

a writing ban of 5 years.

For employment at this time

the writers' association suggests

Pohl should go to a home for young people who are difficult to educate.

I was indirectly given spy services, wasn't I ?

And that made the measure full.

I went there.

* Telefonklingeln *

Brecht.

Yes, dear Anna Seghers.

What are you doing in Moscow?

Is that official?

Yes, of course!

Goodbye!

Now you get the Stalin price.

Since our opponents will only keep their goosebumps a mol.

And aren't there some 100,000 rubles in prize money?

Half to Switzerland. - Just in case.

And the Rülicke comes to Moscow. She can interpret.

And Isotchen? - Stay here.

But you're coming with me, aren't you?

I will pin it to your jacket personally.

"Nikolai Tichonow gives the floor to Bertolt Brecht."

The peoples who have a socialist economy

have won a wonderful position,

as for peace.

The impulses of the people become peaceful.

The struggle of everyone against everyone turns into a struggle

all for all.

Those who benefit society benefit themselves.

Those who benefit themselves benefit society.

The useful have it, not the harmful.

This is Khrushchev's secret speech at the 20th party conference.

A Polish officer

sent me the transcript confidentially.

"Stalin went the Way of Terrors.

Executions without trial and without a normal investigation

called a state of insecurity and fear

even despair. "

Breaking out of barbarism can also have barbaric features.

When he died 3 years ago, who did we bury?

"Farewell to the greatest genius of our era,

by Josef Wissarionowitsch Stalin. "

(Rülicke) "It was revealed that many party workers,

who were considered enemies in 1937/38 ,

in reality never enemies, spies, pests and the like

been that they actually always ...

... were honest communists.

But they blacked them out

and sometimes they held the barbaric tortures ... "

Torture? Is there torture?

So yes.

"And sometimes they could not endure the barbaric torture

and accused themselves

serious and improbable crimes.

During the purge, the comrades were shot after torture

and the judgments ...

... made afterwards. "

No, Kathe who wants to keep it secret is right.

You can't publish that.

Not at the moment.

(coughs)

* Music *

"Spoke to them with rifle and whip,

all days of the week, all working days,

the deserved killer of the people. "

"Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Zero."

When I saw the flash in the newsreel

I immediately changed Galileo with Charles Laughton .

Ruth then filmed our Galileo in Los Angeles in 1947.

The early morning, the beautiful hour as he enjoys it.

The first look at the books, the first lesson.

Thinking is a physical pleasure.

The morning of a new century.

(Narrator) It all starts with the desire to know.

But what will happen to this knowledge?

Who will use or abuse it?

The original sin of science and the end product, the atomic bomb.

That was a very clear starting point for the performance in California.

And that still played a big part, of course

for our thinking in Berlin, 10 years later.

It was the Cold War situation .

"A third world war would make Germany uninhabitable,

so concludes the statement made by the poet Bertolt Brecht

published on the Paris Agreement . "

"The 2nd phase of the rearmament of the German Federal Republic

has begun.

Around 2,000 volunteers

have moved into the training camp. "

(Narrator) The old friend Caspar Neher on the way to Bertolt Brecht

in the Soviet sector of Berlin.

Since the early 1950s, with the intensification of the Cold War,

it was between Brecht and his stage designer

no more cooperation.

Don't tell Brecht that I called.

He's pretty down.

Looks like flu, but doesn't want to stop.

The fever comes and goes.

But he's still being treated.

The Charité and Dr. Mollify Mertens from the west.

And he does n't want to show anything.

Rehearses and rehearses, in the sessions of the academy he rubs himself.

And his heart? - Very shaky, he says.

He gets digitalis for support.

Galileo lets his assistant look through the new telescope.

Doesn't he have to go through it himself? - No!

What does he see? The sun illuminates the earth and the moon.

The earth casts its shadow on the moon. He knows that.

Just turn forward and enjoy your triumph.

(Prompter) what you see is

that there is no difference between heaven and earth.

What you see is ...

The other day with the Isot in the cinema, he soon had to leave the room.

A fit? - Suddenly he could n't breathe.

(Narrator) What happens to knowledge?

A new worldview could create a new society.

Free from Pope and Emperor.

Everything depends on the courage of Galileo, his liberating knowledge

not to surrender to power, but to pass it on to the people.

(Ernst Busch) Mankind writes in its journal:

Heaven abolished.

Listen, Kamper: You get up there.

Because you are appalled by the consequences.

Turn forward too, and stay rigid! Yes.

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

See that the Brecht comes to rest.

You should come back for the stage design .

Who? Ans BE?

Steady in the GDR?

For Galileo only.

Sagredo, I believe in people. I believe in your reason.

Bush! You know there are others for this truth

been burned as a heretic, but now you have evidence.

If you speak that very matter-of-factly, it will work even better.

Sagredo, I believe in people. I believe in his reason.

Without that belief I wouldn't have the strength

getting up from my bed in the morning .

Cas, it's serious. He needs you.

You had a name for a long time.

You could have worked in the west and east.

A State Secretary in the West gave me in writing at the time:

Working at Brecht is a political issue

is a commitment to the other side.

An artistic work for me, a political issue?

A confession for the other side?

For the other side of the iron curtain,

so see the des.

It is an insolence of the man.

Completely out of the question.

An insolence, a bottomless one.

A mess. - Yes, but you know that.

In this country, every text, every line, even from you,

controlled by the party.

Already the paper for printing

is only allocated after the censorship.

We fight against such stupidities .

And a lot has gotten better.

It's just that we are not exactly what you want.

But they don't want to lose what they have with us.

This row of the yard, how they are set up,

he reproduced that exactly.

It is like the position of the leading comrades in the stands

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

(Narrator) Insightful for the connoisseur . - Yes / Yes.

Of course , the audience also consisted of experts.

(Narrator) Under the supervision of ecclesiastical authority

Galileo secretly has the "Discorsi" in the bright nights ,

his science, written down.

He shows his student the hiding place in the globe.

The Inquisition had Galileo under the threat of torture

forced to withdraw.

He had to deny his new worldview as an error.

They hid the truth from the enemy. That changes everything.

Explain that, Andrea.

So far he was the traitor for fear of torture.

Now they make him a hero.

With the man on the street we said:

It will die, but it will never be revoked.

They came back:

I have revoked but I will live.

Her hands are stained, we said.

They said: Better stained than empty.

Better stained than empty.

Sounds realistic.

Sounds like me

(Narrator) That also sounds familiar to you.

(Tragelehn) But it's amazing

that it was only seen so late

this identity of Brecht and Galileo.

Brecht goes, stands, speaks like Galileo.

(Narrator) Do you think Brecht knew that with "Galileo"

also told something about himself and his situation?

"Known" is a very difficult term.

(Narrator) Ancestry?

This affects ...

... the difference between science and art, isn't it?

Uh ...

It is a different kind of knowledge.

He wrote it.

(Neher) Yes, and does Galileo forgive his betrayal?

Better stained than empty.

Both apply.

The achievement and the betrayal.

Galileo should have given his liberating knowledge to the people.

You say.

We ask questions.

Yes and some think

Brecht also knows the answers beforehand .

Be careful with the answers.

We are tightrope walkers.

We need the rope to dance on it.

Otherwise they suddenly use it to hang someone up.

(Tragelehn) I found the question convicting Galileo,

Justification or conviction, unanswerable.

It has to be passed on, doesn't it?

The theater cannot answer that.

It has to be answered again and again

in the audience.

Ja, Cas.

You'll be down there soon.

But when the time comes, you have to promise me

to end Galileo with the angel .

He's already in the rehearsals.

No, so don't believe that yourself.

You still have so much to do.

But then, at 60, we retire.

Let the assistants work.

A house under the southern sky.

With a lot of time for our talks.

Like back then in Augsburg. - Yes exactly.

? When i amoi die, die, die,

have to wear mi d'Fiaker and beat zither.

Weil I des red, pink, red,

plays dance loud and bright, all fidel.

D'Madln of Vienna, Vienna, Vienna

will go there in mourning and stand around the bahr

He's gone, -hin, -hin,

the spirit was fidel , my soul ! ?

(Pipes)

(Hans Bunge) Attention! Attention! 1, 2, 3!

Do everything he says!

Don't upset him.

Please do everything he says.

(Weber) And then he was feeling so bad

that he couldn't shout up to the stage anymore .

Listen to everyone.

Hello!

In London...

... I will not be there.

So we all have to get a little faster.

Otherwise they are bored there in England.

You don't all speak German.

That sounds like a voice from the grave.

But the plot ...

... they will be able to follow with the pictures and your gestures.

That was 2 days before he died.

He still tried until the day before last .

Does not slouch through the scenes.

Don't play pedestrian!

More speed!

Let's take a look at that again.

(Lutz) But the last direction from him

was for the guest performance.

I have the fat woman ...

Im Kreidekreis war are not Wattierte.

Don't illustrate too much.

The old woman is not sick.

She's not stupid, she's just fat.

I wo n't be able to stay that long today, ge?

Good Trip.

(Lutz) He shook my hand.

The hand was so limp and so depressed.

I owe everything to him.

Everything I am, what I became afterwards,

I owe everything to him.

(Narrator) He has claimed many people for his life

and for his plans ...

(Lutz) But he gave an infinite amount,

if you had the mind to use it.

(Narrator) You were with him for so many years.

You were an actress very much loved by him .

Do you feel like you knew him?

He knew me.

And very well.

And you couldn't know him.

Then the doctor hit him on the cheek so lightly.

The last word Papa said was, "Leave me alone!"

Then he was gone.

* Music *

Isot, good night.

* Music *

"Open after my death."

"I ask Helli to do the following.

First. That death is assured. "

I am now opening the femoral artery.

"Second, that the coffin is made of steel or iron.

Third, that the coffin is not displayed openly.

Fourth, that if it is to be exhibited,

is exhibited in the rehearsal house.

Fifth, that no music is played. "

Now we are all alone in the world.

"... and only has the name 'Brecht' on a stone.

Danke Helli! Brecht. "

* Music *

(Peter Voigt) Immediately a week later an advertisement appeared

an advertisement from a wine company from the Rhineland.

"Three Penny Droplets" with the death mask from Brecht.

Weigel has had all death masks collected again

and got it from a stage worker

smashed in the yard of the theater .

(Narrator) Systematic surveillance now follows in the GDR

the political opposition also that of the artists,

finally the entire population.

Helene Weigel takes over from Brecht,

to continue the Berlin ensemble in its spirit.

It saves Brecht's legacy from access by the SED

and protects his work from falsification by the party.

So she helps with many other Bert Brecht,

to become a classic.

Copyright Bavaria Fiction GmbH 2018