Berlin: Brecht's Theater am Schifffbauerdamm

A lot of flags were flying in East Berlin. Many of these were probably hoisted to welcome delegates to the seventh Party Congress of the country's only permitted political party, the SED.

Party Congresses were carefully stage-managed affairs, their composition and conclusions being rigidly fixed well in advance. (Not all that different from Britain's political party conferences, save that any dissent would have brought dire consequences upon a perpetrator.) Like any other country today with the word "democratic" incorporated in its name, it had to offer at least a pretence of democracy.

The Congress may have been the reason for the presence of the large banner bearing Bertold Brecht's words:

"The theatre of these decades must entertain, enliven and inspire the masses. It must offer artistic works which show reality in such a manner that socialism can thrive. So it must serve truth, humanity and beauty."


The theatre is that of the "Berliner Ensemble", Brecht's company of actors. Brecht was one of the 20th century's major dramatists, and also a fine poet. His political outlook did not always follow the party line. In this poem he commented on the bloody suppression by Soviet tanks of the workers' uprising of 1953:

The Solution

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts.

Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?



PHOTOGRAPHIC INFO:
Camera: Minolta M1 (35mm film)
Kodachrome slide: 1/60th sec, f/5.6
The film speed would have been either 25 or 64 ASA/ISO.

[this blip created in April 2014]