Bertolt Brecht
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, will you please state your full
name and
present address for the record,
please? Speak into the microphone.
MR. BRECHT: My name is Bertolt Brecht. I am living at 34
West Sev-
enty-
10, 1898.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, the Committee has a-
THE CHAIRMAN: What was that date again?
MR. STRIPLING: Would you give the date again?
THE CHAIRMAN: Tenth of February 1898.
MR. McDOWELL: 1898?
MR. BRECHT: 1898.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Chairman, the Committee has here an
interpreter,
if you desire the use of an interpreter.
MR. CRUM: Would you like an interpreter?
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you desire an interpreter?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Where are you employed, Mr. Baumgardt?
MR. [DAVID] BAUMGARDT [interpreter]: In the Library of
Congress.
MR. BRECHT: Mr. Chairman, may I read a statement in English?
THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, but has the Chief Investigator completed
his in-
vestigation
of both the interpreter and the witness?
MR. STRIPLING: No, sir, I have not. What is your position in
the Con-
gressional
Library, Mr. Baumgardt?
MR. BAUMGARDT: Consultant of philosophy of the Library of
Con-
gress.
MR. STRIPLING: Now, Mr. Brecht, will you state to the
Committee
whether or not you are a citizen of
the
MR. BRECHT: I am not a citizen of the
first papers.
MR. STRIPLING: When did you acquire your first papers?
MR. BRECHT: In 1941, when I came to the country.
MR. STRIPLING: When did you arrive in the
MR. BRECHT: May I find out exactly? I arrived July 21 at San
Pedro,
MR. STRIPLING:
MR. BRECHT: That is right.
MR. STRIPLING: You were born in
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR, STRIPLING: I am reading from the immigration records-
MR. CRUM: I think, Mr. Stripling, it was 1898.
MR. BRECHT: 1898.
MR. STRIPLING: I beg your pardon.
MR. CRUM: I think the witness tried to say 1898.
MR. STRIPLING: I want to know whether the immigration
records are
correct on that. Is it '88 or '98?
MR. BRECHT: '98.
MR. STRIPLING: Were you issued a quota immigration visa by
the
American vice-consul on
MR. BRECHT: That is correct.
MR. STRIPLING: And you entered this country on that visa?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Where had you resided prior to going to
land?
MR. BRECHT: May I read my statement? In that statement-
THE CHAIRMAN: First, Mr. Brecht, we are trying to identify
you. The
identification won't be very long.
MR. BRECHT: I had to leave
ler took
power. Then I went to
in '39 I had to leave for
and then Hitler invaded
went to
MR. STRIPLING: Now, Mr. Brecht, what is your occupation?
MR. BRECHT: I am a playwright and a poet.
MR. STRIPLING: Where are you presently employed?
MR. BRECHT: I am not employed.
MR. STRIPLING: Were you ever employed in the motion-picture indus-
try?
MR. BRECHT: Yes. I sold a story to a
Die, but I did not write the screenplay myself. I am not a
professional
screenplay writer. I wrote another
story for a
was not produced.
MR. STRIPLING: Hangmen Also Die-whom did you sell to, what
studio?
MR. BRECHT: That was to, I think, an independent firm,
Pressburger at
United Artists.
MR. STRIPLING: When did you sell the play to United Artists?
MR. BRECHT: The story-I don't remember exactly, maybe around
'43
or '44-I don't remember, quite.
MR. STRIPLING: And what other studios have you sold material
to?
MR. BRECHT: No other studio. Besides the last story I spoke
of, I wrote
for
MR. STRIPLING: Are you familiar with Hanns Eisler? Do you
know Jo-
hannes
Eisler?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: How long have you known Johannes Eisler?
MR. BRECHT: I think since the middle of the twenties, twenty
years or
so.
MR. STRIPLING: Have you collaborated with him on a number of
works?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, are you a member of the Communist
Party or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: May I read my statement? I will answer this
question,
but may I read my statement?
MR. STRIPLING: Would you submit your statement to the
Chairman?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: All right, let's see the statement.
(Mr. Brecht hands the statement to the Chairman.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Brecht, the Committee has carefully gone
over the
statement. It is a very interesting
story of German life, but it is not at all
pertinent to this inquiry.
Therefore, we do not care to have you read the
statement.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, before we go on with the
questions, I
would like to put into the record
the subpoena which was served upon you
on September 19, calling for your
appearance before the Committee. You
are here in response to a subpoena,
are you not?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Now, I will repeat the original question. Are
you now
or have you ever been a member of
the Communist Party of any country?
MR. BRECHT: Mr. Chairman, I have heard my colleagues when
they
considered this question not as
proper, but I am a guest in this country and
do not want to enter into any legal
arguments, so I will answer your ques-
tion
fully as well I can. I was not a member, or am not a
member, of any
Communist Party.
THE CHAIRMAN: Your answer is, then, that you have never been
a
member of the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: That is correct.
MR. STRIPLING: You were not a member of the Communist Party
in
MR. BRECHT: No, I was not.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, is it true that you have written
a number
of very revolutionary poems, plays,
and other writings?
MR. BRECHT: I have written a number of poems and songs and
plays in
the fight against Hitler and, of
course, they can be considered, therefore, as
revolutionary because I, of course,
was for the overthrow of that govern-
ment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Stripling, we are not interested in any
works that
he might have written advocating
the overthrow of
ment
there.
MR. STRIPLING: Yes, I understand. Well, from an examination
of the
works which Mr. Brecht has written,
particularly in collaboration with Mr.
Hanns Eisler, he seems to be a person of international
importance to the
Communist revolutionary movement.
Now, Mr. Brecht, is it true you have
written articles which have
appeared in publications in the Soviet zone of
MR. BRECHT: I do not remember to have written such articles.
I have
not seen any of them printed. I
have not written any such articles just now.
I write very few articles, if any.
MR. STRIPLING: I have here, Mr. Chairman, a document which I
will
hand to the translator and ask him
to identify it.
MR. BRECHT: May I explain this publication?
MR. STRIPLING: Yes. Will you identify the publication?
MR. BRECHT: Oh, yes. That is not an article, that is a scene
out of a
play I wrote in, I think, 1937 or
1938 in
Private Life of the Master Race,
and this scene is one of the scenes out of
this play about a Jewish woman in
see, printed in this magazine Ost
und West, July 1946.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Translator, would you translate the
frontispiece of
the magazine, please?
MR. BAUMGARDT: "East and West, Contributions to
Cultural and Polit-
ical
Questions of the Time, edited by Alfred Kantorowicz,
1947, first year of publication
enterprise."
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, do you know the gentleman who is
the
editor of the publication whose
name was just read?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I know him from
again.
MR. STRIPLING: Do you know him to be a member of the
Communist
Party of
MR. BRECHT: When I met him in
on the Ullstein Press. That is not
a Communist-was not a Communist-
there were no Communist Party
papers, so I do not know exactly whether
he was a member of the Communist
Party of Germany.
MR. STRIPLING: You don't know whether he was a member of the
Communist Party or not?
MR. BRECHT: I don't know, no; I don't know.
MR. STRIPLING: In 1930 did you, with Hanns Eisler, write a
play enti-
tied, Die Massnahme?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Would you explain to the Committee the theme
of that
play-what it dealt with?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I will try to.
MR. STRIPLING: First, explain what the title means.
MR. BRECHT: Die Massnahme means (speaking in German).
MR. BAUMGARDT: Measures to be taken, or steps to be taken-meas-
ures.
MR. STRIPLING: Could it mean disciplinary measures?
MR. BAUMGARDT: No, not disciplinary measures, no. It means meas-
ures to
be taken.
MR. STRIPLING: All right. You tell the Committee now, Mr.
Brecht,
what this play dealt with.
MR. BRECHT: Yes. This play is the adaptation of an old
religious Japa-
nese
play, called [a] Noh play, and follows quite closely this old story which
shows the devotion for an ideal
until death.
MR. STRIPLING: What was that ideal, Mr. Brecht?
MR. BRECHT: The idea in the old play was a religious idea.
This young
people-
MR. STRIPLING: Didn't it have to do with the Communist
Party?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: And discipline within the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, yes, it is a new play, an adaptation. It
had as a
background the Russia-China of the
years 1918 or 1919, or so. There some
Communist agitators went to a sort of no man's land between
the
which then was not a state and had
no real-
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, may I interrupt you? Would you consider
the play to be pro-Communist or
anti-Communist, or would it take a neu-
tral
position regarding Communists?
MR. BRECHT: No, I would say-you see, literature has the
right and
the duty to give to the public the
ideas of the time. Now, in this play-of
course, I wrote about twenty
plays-but in this play I tried to express the
feelings and the ideas of the
German workers who then fought against Hit-
ler. I
also formulated in an artistic-
MR. STRIPLING: Fighting against Hitler, did you say?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Written in 1930?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, yes. Oh, yes, that fight started in 1923.
MR. STRIPLING: You say it is about
with
MR. BRECHT: No, it had nothing to do about it.
MR. STRIPLING: Let me read this to you.
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Throughout the play reference is made to the
theories
and teachings of Lenin, the ABC of
Communism, and other Communist
classics, and the activities of the
Chinese Communist Party in general. The
following are excerpts from the
play.
Now, Mr. Brecht, will you tell the Committee whether or not
one of
the characters in this play was
murdered by his comrade because it was in
the best interest of the Communist
Party, is that true?
MR. BRECHT: No, it is not quite according to the story.
MR. STRIPLING: Because he would not bow to discipline he was
mur-
dered by
his comrades, isn't that true?
MR. BRECHT: No, it is not really in it. You will find, when
you read it
carefully, like in the old Japanese
play where other ideas were at stake, this
young man who died was convinced
that he had done damage to the mis-
sion he
believed in and he agreed to that and he was about ready to die, in
order not to make greater such
damage. So he asks his comrades to help
him, and all of them together help
him to die. He jumps into an abyss and
they lead him tenderly to that
abyss. And that is the story.
THE CHAIRMAN: I gather from your remarks, from your answer,
that he
was just killed, he was not
murdered?
MR. BRECHT: He wanted to die.
THE CHAIRMAN: So they kill him?
MR. BRECHT: No, they did not kill him-not in this story. He
killed
himself. They supported him, but of
course they had told him it were better
when he disappeared, for him and
them and the cause he also believed in.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, could you tell the Committee how
many
times you have been to
MR. BRECHT: Yes. I was invited to
MR. STRIPLING: Who invited you?
MR. BRECHT: The first time I was invited by the Voks
Organization for
Cultural Exchange [Society for Cultural Relations with
Foreign
Countries]. I was invited to show a
picture, a documentary picture I had
helped to make in
MR. STRIPLING: What was the name of that picture?
MR. BRECHT: The name-it is the name of a suburb of
Wampe.
MR. STRIPLING: While you were in
Tretyakov?
MR. BRECHT: Tretyakov, yes. That is a Russian playwright.
MR. STRIPLING: A writer?
MR. BRECHT: Yes. He translated some of my poems and, I
think, one
play.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Chairman, International Literature No.5,
1937,
published by the State Literary Art
Publishing House in
article by Sergei Tretyakov,
leading Soviet writer, on an interview he had
with Mr. Brecht. On page 60, it
states:
"I was a member of the Augsburg Revolutionary
Committee," Brecht con-
tinued.
"Nearby, in
burg lived in the reflected glow of
unit in the town. It elected me to
the revolutionary committee. I still remem-
ber Georg
Brem and the Polish Bolshevik Olshevsky. We did not boast a
single Red guardsman. We didn't
have time to issue a single decree or nation-
alize a
single bank or close a church. In two days General Epp's troops came
to town on their way to
committee hid at my house until he
managed to escape."
He wrote Drums at Night. This work contained echoes of the
revolution.
The drums of revolt persistently summon the man who has gone
home. But
the man prefers quiet peace of his
hearthside.
The work was a scathing satire on those who had deserted the
revolution
and toasted themselves at their
fireplaces. One should recall that Kapp
launched his drive on Christmas
Eve, calculating that many Red guardsmen
would have left their detachments
for the family Christmas trees.
His play, Die Massnahme, the first of Brecht's plays on a
Communist
theme, is arranged like a court
where the characters try to justify themselves
for having killed a comrade, and
judges, who at the same time represent the
audience, summarize the events and
reach a verdict.
When he visited in
theater in
history of mankind.
Brecht conceived the idea of writing a play about the
terrorist tricks re-
sorted to by the landowners in
order to peg the price of grain. But this re-
quires a knowledge of economics.
The study of economics brought Brecht to
Marx and Lenin, whose works became an
invaluable part of his library.
Brecht studies and quotes Lenin as a great thinker and as a
great master of
prose.
The traditional drama portrays the struggle of class
instincts. Brecht de-
mands
that the struggle of class instincts be replaced by the struggle of social
consciousness, of social
convictions. He maintains that the situation must not
only be felt, but
explained-crystallized into the idea which will overturn the
world.
Do you recall that interview, Mr. Brecht?
MR. BRECHT: No. (Laughter.) It must
have been written twenty years
ago or so.
MR. STRIPLING: I will show you the magazine, Mr. Brecht.
MR. BRECHT: Yes. I do not recall there was an interview.
(Book
handed to the witness.) I do not
recall-Mr. Stripling, I do not recall the
interview in exact. ...I think it
is a more or less journalistic summary of
talks or discussions about many
things.
MR. STRIPLING: Yes. Have many of your writings been based
upon the
philosophy of Lenin and Marx?
MR. BRECHT: No, I don't think that is quite correct, but, of
course, I
studied, had to study as a
playwright who wrote historical plays, I, of
course, had to study Marx's ideas
about history. I do not think intelligent
plays today can be written without
such study. Also, history written now is
vitally influenced by the studies
of Marx about history.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, since you have been in the
have you attended any Communist
Party meetings?
MR. BRECHT: No, I don't think so.
MR. STRIPLING: You don't think so?
MR. BRECHT: No.
THE CHAIRMAN: Well, aren't you certain?
MR. BRECHT: No-I am certain, yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: You are certain you have never been to
Communist
Party meetings?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I think so. I am here six years-I am here
those-I
do not think so. I do not think
that I attended political meetings.
THE CHAIRMAN: No, never mind the political meetings, but
have you
attended any Communist meetings in
the
MR. BRECHT: I do not think so, no.
THE CHAIRMAN: You are certain?
MR. BRECHT: I think I am certain.
THE CHAIRMAN: You think you are certain?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I have not attended such meetings, in my
opinion.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, have you, since you have been in
the
MR. BRECHT: Yes, yes. In
or four times, to the Soviet
consulate with, of course, many other writers.
MR. STRIPLING: What others?
MR. BRECHT: With other writers and artists and actors who.
..they
gave some receptions at special
Soviet (speaking in German)-
MR. BAUMGARDT: Festivities.
MR. BRECHT: Festivities.
MR. STRIPLING: Did any of the officials of the Soviet
government ever
come and visit you?
MR. BRECHT: I don't think so.
MR. STRIPLING: Didn't Gregory Kheifets visit you on
vice-consul of the Soviet
government? You know Gregory Kheifets, don't
you?
MR. BRECHT: Gregory Kheifets?
THE CHAIRMAN: Watch out on this one.
MR. BRECHT: I don't remember that name, but I might know
him, yes.
I don't remember-
MR. STRIPLING: Did he come and visit you on
MR. BRECHT: It is quite possible.
MR. STRIPLING: And again on April 27, and again on
MR. BRECHT: That is quite possible, yes, that somebody-I
don't
know. I don't remember the name,
but that somebody, some of the cultural
attaches-
MR. STRIPLING: Cultural attaches.
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Spell the name.
MR. STRIPLING: Gregory, G-r-e-g-o-r-y. Kheifets,
K-h-e-i-f-e-t-s.
MR. BRECHT: Kheifets?
MR. STRIPLING: Yes. Do you remember Mr. Kheifets?
MR. BRECHT: I don't remember the name, but it is quite
possible. But I
remember that from the-I think from
the-yes, from the consulate, from
the Russian consulate some people
visited me, but not only this man, but
also I think the consul once, but I
don't remember his name either.
MR. STRIPLING: What was the nature of his business?
MR. BRECHT: He-it must have been about my literary
connections
with German writers. Some of them
are friends of mine.
MR. STRIPLING: German writers?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, in
MR. STRIPLING: In
MR. BRECHT: Yes. And there appeared in the Staats Verlag
[State pub-
lishing
house] the Sergei Tretyakov translations of my plays, for instance,
Private Life of the Master Race, A Penny for the Poor, and
poems, and so
on.
MR. STRIPLING: Did Gerhart Eisler ever visit you, not Hanns,
but Ger-
hart?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I met Gerhart Eisler, too. He is a brother
of Hanns
and he visited me with Hanns and
then three or four times without
Hanns.
MR. STRIPLING: Could you tell us in what year he visited
you? Wasn't
it the same year that Mr. Kheifets
visited you?
MR. BRECHT: I do not know, but there is no connection I can
see.
MR. STRIPLING: Do you recall him visiting you on
MR. BRECHT: No, I do not recall such date, but he might have
visited
me on such date.
MR. STRIPLING: Where did he visit you?
MR. BRECHT: He used to ask for his brother who, as I told
you, is an
old friend of mine, and we played
some games of chess, too, and we spoke
about politics.
MR. STRIPLING: About politics?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: What was the last answer? I didn't get the
last answer?
MR. STRIPLING: They spoke about politics. In any of your conversa-
tions
with Gerhart Eisler did you discuss the German Communist move-
ment?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: In
MR. BRECHT: Yes, we spoke about, of course, German politics.
He is a
specialist in that, he is a
politician.
MR. STRIPLING: He is a politician?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, he, of course, knew very much more than I
knew
about the situation in
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, can you tell the Committee, when
you
entered this country did you make a
statement to the Immigration Service
concerning your past affiliations?
MR. BRECHT: I don't remember to have made such a statement,
but I
think I made the usual statements
that I did not want to, or did not intend
to, overthrow the American
Government. I might have been asked whether
I belonged to the Communist Party,
I don't remember to have been asked,
but I would have answered what I
have told you, that I was not.
MR. STRIPLING: Did they ask you whether or not you had ever
been a
member of the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: I don't remember.
MR. STRIPLING: Did they ask you whether or not you had ever
been to
the Soviet?
MR. BRECHT: I think they asked me, yes, and I told them.
MR. STRIPLING: Did they question you about your writings?
MR. BRECHT: No, not as I remember; no, they did not. I don't
remem-
ber any
discussion about literature.
MR. STRIPLING: Now, you stated you sold the book, the story,
Hang-
men Also Die, to United Artists. Is
that correct?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, to an independent firm, yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Did Hanns Eisler do the background music for
Hang-
men Also Die?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, he did.
MR. STRIPLING: Do you recall who starred in that picture?
MR. BRECHT: No, I do not.
MR. STRIPLING: You don't even remember who played the
leading role
in the picture?
MR. BRECHT: I think Brian Donlevy played it.
MR. STRIPLING: Do you remember any of the other actors or
actresses
who were in it?
MR. BRECHT: No, I do not. You see, I had not very much to do
with
the filmization itself. I wrote the
story and then [gave] to the script writers
some advice about the background of
Nazis, Nazism in
I had nothing to do with the actors.
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Stripling, can we hurry this along? We
have a very
heavy schedule this afternoon.
MR. STRIPLING: Yes. Now, Mr. Brecht, since you have been in
the
United States have you contributed articles to any Communist
publications
in the
MR. BRECHT: I don't think so, no.
MR. STRIPLING: Are you familiar with the magazine New
Masses?
MR. BRECHT: No.
MR. STRIPLING: You never heard of it?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, of course.
MR. STRIPLING: Did you ever contribute anything to it?
MR. BRECHT: No.
MR. STRIPLING: Did they ever publish any of your work?
MR. BRECHT: That I do not know. They might have published
some
translation of a poem, but I had no
direct connection with it, nor did I send
them anything.
MR. STRIPLING: Did you collaborate with Hanns Eisler on the
song "In
Praise of Learning"?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I collaborated. I wrote that song, and he
only wrote
the music.
MR. STRIPLING: Would you recite to the Committee the words
of that
song?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I would. May I point out, that song comes
from
another adaptation I made, of
worker woman addresses all the poor
people.
MR. STRIPLING: It was produced in this country, wasn't it?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, '35,
MR. STRIPLING: Now, I will read the words and ask you if
this is the
one.
MR. BRECHT: Please.
MR. STRIPLING: [reads the eight lines of verse printed on
page 94.]
MR. BRECHT: No, excuse me, that is
the wrong translation. That is not
right. ( Laughter.)
Just one second, and I will give you the correct text.
MR. STRIPLING: That is not a correct translation?
MR. BRECHT: That is not correct, no. That is not the
meaning. It is not
very beautiful, but I am not
speaking about that.
MR. STRIPLING: What does it mean? I have here a portion of The
People, which was issued by the Communist Party of the
published by the Workers' Library
Publishers. Page 24 says: "In praise of
learning”, by Bert Brecht; music by
Hanns Eisler." It says here:
You must be ready to take over; men on the dole, learn it;
men in the prisons,
learn it; women in the kitchen,
learn it; men of sixty-five, learn it. You must
be ready to take over-
MR. BAUMGARDT: The correct translation would be, "You
must take
the lead."
THE CHAIRMAN: "You must take the lead"?
MR. BAUMGARDT: "The lead." It definitely says,
"the lead." It is not,
"You must take over." The translation is not a
literal translation of the
German.
MR. STRIPLING: Well, Mr. Brecht, as it has been published in
these
publications of the Communist
Party, then, if that is incorrect, what did you
mean?
MR. BRECHT: I don't remember, never-I
never got that book myself. I
must not have been in the country
when it was published. I think it was
published as a song, one of the
songs Eisler had written the music to. I did
not give any permission to publish
it. I don't see-I think I have never saw
the translation.
MR. STRIPLING: Do you have the words there before you?
MR. BRECHT: In German, yes.
MR. STRIPLING: It goes on:
You must be ready to take over; you must be ready to take over.
Don't hesitate to ask questions, comrade-
MR. BRECHT: Why not let him translate from the German, word
for
word?
MR. BAUMGARDT: I think you are mainly interested in this
translation,
which comes from-
THE CHAIRMAN: I cannot understand the interpreter any more
than I
can the witness.
MR. BAUMGARDT: Mr. Chairman, I apologize. I shall make use
of this
[the microphone].
THE CHAIRMAN: Just speak in that microphone and maybe we can
make out.
MR. BAUMGARDT: The last line of all three verses is
correctly to be
translated: "You must take
over the lead," and not, "You must take over."
"You must take the lead," would be the best, most
correct, most accurate
translation.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, did you ever make application to
join the
Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: I do not understand the question. Did I make-
MR. STRIPLING: Have you ever made application to join the Commu-
nist
Party?
MR. BRECHT: No, no, no, no, no, never.
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Chairman, we have here-
MR. BRECHT: I was an independent writer and wanted to be an inde-
pendent writer and I point that
out, and also theoretically, I think, it was
the best for me not to join any
party whatever. And all these things you
read here were not only written for
the German Communists, but they were
also written for workers of any
other kind. Social Democrat workers were
in these performances; so were
Catholic workers from Catholic unions; so
were workers which never had been
in a party or didn't want to go into a
party.
THE CHAIRMAN: Mr. Brecht, did Gerhart Eisler ever ask you to
join the
Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: No, no.
THE CHAIRMAN: Did Hanns Eisler ever ask you to join the
Communist
Party?
MR. BRECHT: No, he did not. I think they considered me just
as a
writer who wanted to write and do
as he saw it but not as a political figure.
THE CHAIRMAN: Do you recall anyone ever having asked you to
join
the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: Some people might have suggested it to me, but
then I
found out that it was not my
business.
THE CHAIRMAN: Who were those people who asked you to join
the
Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: Oh, readers.
THE CHAIRMAN: Who?
MR. BRECHT: Readers of my poems or people from the
audiences. You
mean-there was never an official
approach to me to publish-
THE CHAIRMAN: Some people did ask you to join the Communist
Party.
MR. KENNY: In
MR. BRECHT: In Germany, you mean in
THE CHAIRMAN: No, I mean in the
MR. BRECHT: No, no, no.
THE CHAIRMAN (to Mr. Kenny): He is doing all right. He is
doing much
better than many other witnesses
you have brought here. Do you recall
whether anyone in the
Party?
MR. BRECHT: No, I don't.
MR. STRIPLING: I would like to ask Mr. Brecht whether or not
he wrote
a poem-a song, rather-entitled,
"Forward, We've Not Forgotten."
MR. McDOWELL: "Forward" what?
MR. STRIPLING: "Forward, We've Not Forgotten."
MR. BRECHT: I can't think of that. The English title may be
the rea-
son.
MR. STRIPLING: Would you translate it for him into German?
(Mr. Baumgardt translates into German.)
MR. BRECHT: Oh, now I know, yes.
MR. STRIPLING: You are familiar with the words to that?
MR. BRECHT: Yes.
MR. STRIPLING:
Forward, we've not forgotten our strength in the fights
we've won.
No matter what may threaten, forward, not forgotten, how
strong we
are as one.
Only these our hands now acting,
built the road, the walls, the towers.
All the world is of our making.
What of it can we call ours?
The refrain:
Forward. March on to the tower, through the city, by land
the world;
Forward. Advance it on. Just whose city is the city? Just
whose world
is the world?
Forward, we've not forgotten our union in hunger and pain,
no matter
what may threaten, forward, we've
not forgotten
We have a world to gain. We shall free the world of shadow;
every
shop and every room, every road and
every meadow,
All the world will be our own.
Did you write that, Mr. Brecht?
MR. BRECHT: No. I wrote a German poem, but that is very
different
from this. (Laughter.)
MR. STRIPLING: That is all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Brecht. You are a
good
example to the witnesses of Mr.
Kenny and Mr. Crum.
The Unread Statement
For the record, this is reprinted here exactly as given in
on Trial by Gordon Kahn. In the
album Brecht Before the Un-Amer-
ican
Activities Committee (Folkways, FD 5531) , a lightly edited ver-
sion of
the same text is used. The original German was not published
until the collected works came out
in German in 1967. From which it
would seem that the original
(anonymous) translator had made some
mistakes. For example, the last
sentence should read: "Art can make
such ideas clearer and even
nobler." But it would also seem that the
editors of the German edition have
made at least one deletion-of the
sentence: "We applied for
American citizenship (first papers) on the
day after
I was born in
studied natural sciences and
philosophy at the universities of
the medical corps, I wrote a ballad
which the Hitler government used fifteen
years later as the reason for my
expatriation. The poem Der tote
Soldat
(The Dead Soldier) attacked the war and those wanting to
prolong it.
I became a playwright. For a time,
democracy. There was freedom of
speech and of artistic expression.
In the second half of the 1920's, however, the old
reactionary militarist
forces began to regain strength.
I was then at the height of my career as a playwright, my
play Dreigro-
schenoper
being produced allover
of mine at
gen,
But in
expression and free speech should
be silenced. Humanist, socialist, even
Christian ideas were called "undeutsch"
(un-German), a word which I
hardly can think of without
Hitler's wolfish intonation. At the same time,
the cultural and political
institutions of the people were violently attacked.
The
gan,
accepted by the best writers and all kinds of artists: Die Kunst
dem
Volke (Art Belongs to the People).
The German workers, their interest in
art and literature being very great
indeed, formed a highly important part of
the general public of readers and
theatre-goers. Their sufferings in a deva-
stating depression which more and
more threatened their cultural stand-
ards, the
impudence and growing power of the old militarist, feudal,
imperialist gang alarmed us. I
started writing some poems, songs and plays
reflecting the feelings of the
people and attacking their enemies who now
openly marched under the swastika
of Adolf Hitler.
The persecutions in the field of culture increased
gradually. Famous
painters, publishers and
distinguished magazine editors were persecuted. At
the universities, political witch
hunts were staged, and campaigns were
waged against motion pictures such
as All Quiet on the Western Front.
These, of course, were only preparations for more drastic
measures still
to come. When Hitler seized power,
painters were forbidden to paint, pub-
lishing
houses and film studios were taken over by the Nazi party. But even
these strokes against the cultural life
of the German people were only the
beginning. They were designed and
executed as a spiritual preparation for
total war which is the total enemy
of culture. The war finished it all up. The
German people now have to live without roofs over their
heads, without
sufficient nourishment, without
soap, without the very foundations of cul-
ture.
At the beginning, only a very few people were capable of
seeing the con-
nection
between the reactionary restrictions in the field of culture and the
ultimate assaults upon the physical
life of a people itself. The efforts of the
democratic, anti-militarist forces,
of which those in the cultural field were,
of course, only a modest part, then
proved to be weak altogether; Hitler
took over. I had to leave
Reichstag fire. A veritable exodus
of writers and artists began of a kind
such as the world had never seen
before. ...I settled down in
and dedicated my total literary
production from that time on to the fight
against Nazism, writing plays and
poetry.
Some poems were smuggled into the Third Reich, and Danish
Nazism,
supported by Hitler's embassy, soon
began to demand my deportation. Of
course, the Danish government
refused. But in 1939 when war seemed im-
minent, I
left with my family for
the Lord Mayor of
We continued our flight northward, to
tion
visas to the U.S.A. Hitler's troops followed.
divisions when we left for the
U.S.S.R. by the Siberian Express which carried German,
Austrian, Czecho-
slovakian
refugees. Ten days after our leaving
ish ship,
Hitler invaded the U.S.S.R. During the voyage, the ship loaded
copra in
applied for American citizenship
(first papers) on the day after
Harbor.
I suppose that some poems and plays of mine, written during
this period
of the fight against Hitler, have
moved the Un-American Activities Com-
mittee to
subpoena me.
My activities, even those against Hitler, have always been
purely literary
activities of a strictly independent
nature. As a guest of the
refrained from political activities
concerning this country even in a literary
form. By the way, I am not a screen
writer.
of mine, for a picture showing the
Nazi savageries in
aware of any influence which I
could have exercised in the movie industry
whether political or artistic.
Being called before the Un-American Activities Committee,
however, I
feel free for the first time to say
a few words about American matters:
looking back at my experiences as a
playwright and a poet in the
the last two decades, I wish to say
that the great American people would
lose much and risk much if they
allowed anybody to restrict free competi-
tion of
ideas in cultural fields, or to interfere with art which must be free in
order to be art. We are living in a
dangerous world. Our state of civilization
is such that mankind already is
capable of becoming enormously wealthy
but, as a whole, is still
poverty-ridden. Great wars have been suffered,
greater ones are imminent, we are
told. One of them might well wipe out
mankind, as a whole. We might be
the last generation of the specimen
[species?] man
on this earth.
The ideas about how to make use of the new capabilities of
production
have not been developed much since
the days when the horse had to do
what man could not do. Do you not
think that, in such a predicament, every
new idea should be examined
carefully and freely? Art can present clearly
and even make nobler such ideas.
(1947)
"We Nineteen"
From the
of their best writers will now be
sent to jail. Since I sat next to them on the
defendants' bench in
it-I'm told that some of the people
who have seen my plays do not con-
sider me
a liar. What saved me then was not that no un-American
activities
could be proved in my case-they
could not be proved against those who
are now going to prison either-but
rather that I was not an American.
They had called us nineteen, writers, film directors,
actors, to
before a Congressional Committee to
ask us if we were members of the
Communist Party. At the time, two
years after the war, the artists in the big
film studios of
sums for this purpose, and several
scripts had been commissioned.
Strangely, they did not materialize. The good script writers
would not; the
poor ones could not. Not all good
script writers were progressive, but the
population was not yet ready to see
the heroes of
had saved
had to be worked on first. An
example had to be set, and every refusal to
obey orders from on high had to be
publicly punished. This was the reason
why a number of artists were to be
publicly queried as to whether they were
members of the Communist Party.
For such membership no prison term or fine had been fixed;
the Party
was not illegal at the time.
However, there were punishments in that coun-
try which appear much more harmless
but aren't. The State does not put in
an appearance but the execution
does take place. One could call it Cold
Execution-a certain form of peace is called Cold War there.
This Cold
Execution is carried out by the industry: the delinquent is
not deprived of
his life, only of the means of
life. He does not appear in the obituary col-
umn, only
on the blacklists. Whoever has witnessed the horrors of poverty
and humiliation which, in the land
of the dollar, fall upon the man without
a dollar, will not prefer the
punishment of unemployment to any punish-
ment that
the State could inflict. In our case, incidentally, the State collabo-
rated with the industry: it played
the role of the snooper. It asked the sus-
pects
under oath about their party membership. Now the Constitution of
the
freedom had oil in her lamp, not in
her face. Thus the Constitution forbade
the newly founded State to be the
snooper for the powerful and rich: no one
could be asked about his religion,
opinions, and party membership. The
writers, directors, and actors had
recourse to this clause when the Congres-
sional
Committee examined them under oath. They refused to answer. And
one has to know that by no means
all of them were members of the Com-
munist
Party. Most of them were not, and, had they answered, could have
made replies that would not have
harmed them; they refused to answer only
because they wanted to see the
Constitution respected. What thereupon
happened was bad for them, but even
worse for their country. Signifying
their respect for the Constitution,
they were sentenced to jail terms for con-
tempt of Congress. I myself escaped
being sentenced because, as a non-
American, I had to answer the question; I was not protected
by the Consti-
tution.
My American colleagues were protected by the Constitution; it was
the Constitution that was not
protected. In fact, they realized that they were
exposing themselves to danger by
relying on their Constitution. But they did
not heed that danger; they were
trying to tell the country that it was in
danger. These fearless people called
out to the judges of their country,
"Show everyone who you are! Take up a club and smash
the innocent,
before the eyes of all! So that you can deceive no one any longer." Well, the
judges took up the club and smashed
the innocent, before the eyes of all.
And what have we learned? We have learned what that
"justice" is. We
have also learned that there are
people ready to sacrifice themselves so that
their countrymen as well as the
rest of the world may learn the truth. Salud,
my friends!
(1950)
(Translated by Hugo Schmidt, 1970)