Bertolt Brecht
Born on 10 February 1898Died on 14 August 1956Writer, Screenwriter, Theater directorWas Bertolt Brecht an emigrant? He didn’t see himself as such. Brecht constantly fought against the use of the term, which implies a freedom of choice that expellees were not given.
Hermann Broch
Born on 1 November 1886Died on 30 May 1951WriterHermann Broch studied mathematics, philosophy and physics. The trilogy of novels “Die Schlafwandler” (The Sleepwalkers) (1930–32) established him as an author.
Paul Celan
Born on 23 November 1920Died on 20 April 1970WriterPaul Celan grew up in a German-speaking, Jewish family in Czernowitz in Romania. His childhood in the Bukovina region was shaped by a multicultural, multi-ethnic state. The later nom de plume Celan is a Romanianised anagram of his actual surname Antschel.
Paul Dessau
Born on 19 December 1894Died on 28 June 1979Composer, ConductorPaul Dessau had lived in Berlin since the end of the 1920s. Initially he worked as a conductor at the Städtische Oper Berlin under the direction of general musical director Bruno Walter.
Marlene Dietrich
Born on 27 December 1901Died on 6 May 1992Actress, SingerMarlene Dietrich was never a political artist, nor did she flee the Nazis to the American continent. And yet she was consistent in her opposition to Hitler’s Germany and her support for the United States.
Alfred Döblin
Born on 10 August 1878Died on 26 June 1957WriterAlfred Döblin was interested in literature at an early age and already wrote his first novel in his early twenties. He studied medicine and worked as a doctor, but remained true to his writing and was also successful as an author.
Fred Dolbin
Born on 1 August 1883Died on 31 March 1971Graphic designerBenedikt Fred Dolbin, real name: Fred Pollack, was a member of Vienna’s art and coffeehouse circles. Although he initially trained and qualified as an engineer, Dolbin went on to study composition with Arnold Schönberg and was active as a member of the Vienna art group Die Bewegung.
Angelica Domröse
Berlin theatre actress and DEFA film starBorn ActressTogether with her second husband Hilmar Thate, the actress Angelica Domröse joined the circle of those artists who left East Germany in protest against the 1976 deportation of Wolf Biermann. Finding her work increasingly hindered, she emigrated permanently to the Federal Republic in 1980.
Albert Ehrenstein
Born December 23, 1886,Died April 8, 1950,Writer, PoetAlbert Ehrenstein was a prominent representative of Expressionist literature. His poetry resonated in the time before, during, and after World War I.
Hanns Eisler
Born on 6 July 1898Died on 6 September 1962ComposerFrom 1919 to 1923, Hanns Eisler was a pupil of the composer Arnold Schönberg. He was closely affiliated to the Communist Party of Germany and wrote for workers’ choirs and agitprop groups.
