Brecht was clever, could assess the political situation well and took advantage of it.

Most certainly.

Which play do you think he would adapt.

I agree with Adam [if I may]. The other one could be Baal [1918]

In answering the question, Brecht would say: "Doch die Verhältnisse, sie sind nicht so." /But the circumstances, they're not like that. (Threepenny opera)

THE STATUE

Poor Berthold Brecht is now bronze

and sits on a bronze bench now black

outside the Berliner Ensemble. Twice

life size, his knees where children have climbed,

gleam, also where they have stepped, his toes.

There’s room to his left on the bench where others sat

that also gleams. In these new times,

the Berlin Wall down, his State kaput,

he would not like to sit near those to his left,

gleaming. His stare is inward and he smiles

like a smug Buddha who has forgiven

the disaster of his consent.

He is dishonored. His great poems were not

written by this bronze giant. Inscribed

around his seat is his poem “Questions of the Worker-

Reader.” The rhetorical questions

insult the worker’s intelligence--

a party line poem, and the party’s over.

Every morning he is buried in heavy mist

that rises from the river Spree.

From Snake in the Spine, Wolf in the Heart, Fomite Press

I read with interest that Brecht had a great need and consumption of lovers. They probably caused most of it. All the trouble.

@ Barry Goldensohn

Sir I’m so thankful for sharing this poem.

The poem is from the collection of my political poems, Snake in the Spine, Wolf in the Heart.

Since Bertolt Brecht was a self-professed Marxist, he would probably have been pleased with contemporary world politics today!

Brecht would have no trouble giving a valid answer by telling a story about "Herr Keuner".

He would have used a hammer to deal with it!

“Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.” ― Bertolt Brecht

Forgive me Dr. Amer Hamed Suliman , although your thread assumes what would Brecht's reaction to contemporary world politics, I, myself, felt compelled to think of Iraq's contemporary scene reflecting on Bechet's famous quote:

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions. The political illiterate is so stupid that he is proud and swells his chest saying that he hates politics. The imbecile doesn’t know that, from his political ignorance is born the prostitute, the abandoned child, and the worst thieves of all, the bad politician, corrupted and flunky of the national and multinational companies.”

Hi. See the detail in the following link:

https://www.quora.com/What-would-Brecht-have-said-of-contemporary-world-politics-today

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTMfqwDXUN4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarit%C3%A4tslied

The solidarity song from Brecht comes into my mind, with respect to a possible response on contemporary world politics.

Contemporary world politics . Interesting ??

Brecht famously had a close relationship with the female sex and would perhaps say, looking back to former decades of his life: "I've seen better". In the ideological battle zone between East and West, he knew how to take advantage of staying connected to the West in some respect, in the case that he get fired in the East. He liked to let the GDR celebrate him, but the low living standards of socialism were not enough to live as he knew and needed. His criticism of capitalism was not bad, but obviously he himself realised that the alternative , life in "real socialism", which he experienced daily in East-Germany, was not so attractive as the hope for better times in a post-capitalist political order suggested in his stage plays. He left it at his quite skilful adaptation to the given circumstances - with the result that one thing you can learn from his life: (Brecht-) theatre is theatre - and life under socialism is life under socialism.

Hein Retter Yes, theatre is theatre. However, politics and theatre have a lot in common. Kurt Weill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Weill and his musical talent was essential for the success of Brecht. I guess that June 17, 1953

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953

was a mind changer for Brecht and not his living standard in the GDR or the lack of female sex. There is one poem from that year, which states that the government should choose another people as the people declared their will on the streets. Stopping the outflow from East Germany towards the ‚West‘ was realized by the order to shoot those, who voted with their feet. Yes, life under socialism is socialism and theatre is theatre. Very well formulated, my dear Hein Retter and you are a Berliner.

I have less respect for Brecht as a historical figure, dear Stephen, but significantly more for his plays, at least some of which can still be discussed today, but of course not in the direction that Brecht and his epiric theatre intended. In the young GDR, when I came into contact with Brecht in the upper grades of my school in Berlin-Pankow, the GDR government was extremely cautious about recommending Brecht and his theatre to recommend as a model, because the most important things were created in the USA or and those who were serious about Brecht's concept of "Verfremdung" could, as rebellious bourgeois youths, imagine this concept better against Stalin's socialism and GDR than Brecht's "didactic" intention, because the more pointed the moral finger, the more the good intention turns into the pleasure of caricature in the imagination of the audience. Kurt Weill, on the other hand, was much more "celebrated" by the official SED party, according to my memory. "Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne..." wurde im Westen mehr gesungen als im Osten. But what a pleasure when, for example, in the well-known play by Brecht, "The Good Man of Sezuan" (still one of Brecht's best plays), SED party leader under early GDR rule Walter Ulbricht and his wife Lotte take the place of the unemployed Yang Sun and the prostitute Shen Te - for example with the joke: Walter and Lotte Ulbricht are driving through the flourishing GDR in their car: They see a woman sweeping the street. [...] "My Dear, what are you doing?" - "I'm collecting horse droppings." - "And what do you do with them?" - "They go on the strawberries." - "You see, Lotte", said Ulbricht to his wife, "in our socialism it doesn't always have to be whipped cream!"

By the way: if you were at home in East Berlin in the early fifties like I was, you were more likely to listen to RIAS with the cabaret "Die Insulaner", they could "alienate" everyday life in the GDR much better than Brecht could. And I watched the GDR "uprising" in June 1953 from the West.

Best wishes, Hein

.

Hein Retter Many thanks for sharing these biographical and historical moments of and in your life, dear Hein Retter. Biography is history without theory and helps us to better understand the real circumstances of persons, works and events, with respect to our time horizon of in life.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Heraclitus