This poem by the writer Bertolt Brecht was first discovered over 50 years after his death in the presumably last unknown partial bequest by Brecht, the collection of Victor N. Cohen.

Line 2 of the manuscript refers to a first part of the poem: the poem Taifun first published in 1964.A reference on the manuscript of Taifun provides an indication as to when and where the poem was written. Brecht wrote these lines on 27 June 1941 on the passenger ship Annie Johnson. Brecht, who received a visa for the US in May 1941, travelled on the Annie Johnson from the Russian city of Vladivostok to San Pedro, California.

During the crossing, the ship halted for 24 hours. Brecht took note of the passengers' deliberations on the reason for the standstill in Taifun:

“Fleeing from the painter to the states / We noticed of a sudden that our little ship stood still. / A whole night and a whole day / She lay immobile off Luzon in the South China Sea. / Some said it was because of a typhoon raging in the north / Others feared German pirate ships. / Everyone / Preferred the typhoon to the Germans.”

The description of a general threat in Taifun  by the “house painter” – as Brecht called Adolf Hitler – is followed in the second part by a listing of personal losses suffered by Brecht during his years in exile. The employee whose loss Brecht laments in the poem is Margarete Steffin, who died of tuberculosis in Moscow on the trip to the US.