ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to capture the changeful nature of Bertolt Brecht's political attitudes and artistic practice and to locate some of its sources. These include his acute responsiveness to Europe's tumultuous political landscape between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the Cold War. Even prior to the outbreak of the First World War, Brecht and his grammar school classmates at Augsburg's Royal Realgymnasium were indoctrinated in a monarchist and militant nationalism. Brecht's play Baal is an expression of his irritation with expressionist idealism and pathos. One of the ways Brecht grappled with the events of 1919 was through the writing of a shockingly unsentimental soldier-returns-home play set during the Spartacist uprising in Berlin. Brecht's sensitivity to a context riddled with violent oppositions and power struggles was reflected in his next play, In the Jungle.
