Editor’s spotlight — updated daily
Bertolt Brecht
Germany
Bertolt Brecht created the musical The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill in 1928, a landmark of 20th-century theater. He fled Nazi Germany in 1933, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, and returned to Europe. In East Berlin, he founded the Berliner Ensemble. He died of a heart attack and pneumonia in 1956 at age 58.