I require no tombstone, but
If you require one for me
I wish it to be inscribed:
He made suggestions. We
Accepted them.
By such an inscription we should
All be honored.
Brecht (Collected Poems, Vol. VII)

On February 10, 1968, Brecht would have celebrated his seventieth birthday. It makes one realize how young he died on August 14, 1956 and how rapidly, since he died, he has acquired the status of an established international classic; and yet, ten years earlier, in 1946, he was little more than an unknown and neglected German exile tramping the streets of Los Angeles and New York in search of recognition.