Berlin, 1948, the communist regime is being established, with the Stasi already in control of the sector, and the GDR is the antithesis of the FRG. Berthold Brecht returns to Germany, to the zone controlled by the Russians. There are the usual committees and associations of dictatorial regimes.
Brecht is a writer, a man of the theater, and as such he is monitored, observed, spied on. He loves women, and Maria will become his mistress while simultaneously being used to spy on him. The atmosphere is heavy; everything is suspicion, and eventually, Maria will be able to reach the west, freedom, and especially her daughter.
In this novel, where love, politics, and dialectics are the key elements of the plot, the author describes East Berlin and the GDR as a dictatorship serving the USSR. Although this situation has fortunately disappeared today, it nonetheless existed, and it is the merit of this work to make us relive the drama of the Berlin Wall, whose crossing was impossible, except by risking and often losing one’s life.
Brecht’s mistress reminds us of the division of Germany after the Second World War. We also see Marxist dialectics that, through speeches, explained the condemnation of the west, the bourgeois world, and the justification of the dictatorship of the proletariat. A valuable history lesson to ponder to avoid reliving it.
Thierry Jan, writer
