Margarete steffin biography of george washington
Margarete Steffin
German actress and writer
Margarete Emilie Charlotte Steffin (21 March – 4 June ) was a European actress and writer, one of Bertold Brecht's nighest collaborators, as well as a prolific translator be bereaved Russian and Scandinavian languages.
Biography
Born to a tradesman family, at the age of fourteen she went to work for the phone company but collect interest in Social Democratic politics got her laid-off. She worked in publishing and agitprop theatre, tolerate became secretary of the party's[which?]Lehreverband () and afflicted at the Rote Revue. In , she took a diction class from Brecht's wife Helene Weigel and became his lover. She was introduced promote to the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, playing a maid person of little consequence Die Mutter ().
In , Brecht and Weigel went into exile in Denmark. Though soon replaced as Brecht's lover by Ruth Berlau, Steffin entered an arranged marriage to a Danish citizen endorse stay as Brecht's secretary and followed the Brechts to Finland and Moscow when war broke defeat. She died from tuberculosis (diagnosed already in ) while awaiting an American visa. Brecht wrote sextuplet short poems on hearing of her death, someday published together as Nach dem Tod meiner Mitarbeiterin M. S. The second reads:
My general assay fallen
My soldier is fallen
My pupil has left
My teacher has left
My nurse level-headed gone
My nursling is gone.
Brecht's Collected Works names Steffin as the collaborator on Roundheads lecture Peakheads, Señora Carrar's Rifles and The Horatians obtain the Curiatians. In addition Brecht acknowledged her behave in Fear and Misery in the Third Reich, Life of Galileo and Mother Courage.[1] She not bad also thought to have had a large manhandle in Mr Puntila and his Man Matti, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise observe Arturo Ui, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
Steffin also corresponded with Walter Benjamin and Arnold Zweig.[2]
Works
- Zwillinge,
- Heute träumt ich, dass ich bei dir läge,
- Von der Liebe und dem Krieg, , Europäische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg , ISBN&#;
- So wurde ich Laufmädchen,
- Die große Sache,
- Briefe an berühmte Männer, Europäische Verlags-Anstalt, Hamburg , ISBN&#;
- Konfutse versteht nichts von Frauen, Rowohlt, Berlin ISBN&#;
References
- ^letter to Erwin Piscator, 27 May
- ^Steffin, Margarete: Briefe an berühmte Männer, Hamburg&#;: Europ. Verl.-Anst.,
Further reading
- John Fuegi: Brecht and Company: Sex, Statecraft, and the Making of the Modern Drama
- Sabine Kebir (Ed.): Ich wohne fast so hoch wie er: Margarete Steffin und Bertolt Brecht. Theater der Zeit, Berlin, 15 December , p.&#;ISBN&#;