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  • Chapter 31 - World Spirit versus Spirit of the Age: Brecht’s Impact and Influence on East German Literature and Culture

  • from Part III - The World’s Brecht
  • Edited by Stephen Brockmann, Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania
  • Book:
    Bertolt Brecht in Context
    Published online:
    28 May 2021
    Print publication:
    10 June 2021, pp 266-273

  • Summary

    This article, a personal reflection by the respected Eastern German writer Kerstin Hensel, explores Bertolt Brecht’s significance for the development of East German literature and culture. The socialist regime in East Germany sought to coopt Brecht’s legacy for its own purposes, and by the 1970s and 1980s Brecht had therefore become something of a lifeless classic throughout much of the GDR. However, his approach to theater and writing still had the potential to unsettle and inspire younger writers occasionally, and Brecht had a major influence on some of the most famous East German writers and playwrights, including Heiner Müller, Peter Hacks, and Volker Braun. Hensel shows via a close-reading the way that themes and tropes from one of Brecht’s most famous poems influenced Volker Braun in one of his poems and then Henself herself, who consciously placed herself in the tradition of both of her predecessors.