Brecht's American Exile and His Return to Europe: Experiences of an Incurable Dialectician

Abstract

Brecht, the master of the aesthetic technique of “Verfremdung,” who once had admired America as a model of modernity, became after his arrival in Los Angeles in 1941 one of the sharpest critics of American society and the American way of life, as his autobiographical writings document. The essay describes Brecht's difficult existence in America, his problems as a playwright and a poet, as he saw them, and his political involvement in the Council for a Democratic Germany. Like many exiles, Brecht was suspected early on to have been and still be a supporter of the Communist Party and was therefore observed by the FBI. However, when he returned to Europe he encountered, to his chagrin, similar problems and difficulties, be it in Switzerland, Austria, West Germany, and even in the former GDR, where he finally settled and received his own theater. No wonder that Brecht, the incurable dialectician, began to view again his once-denounced American experience in a more positive light.