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German author and dramatist Bertolt Brecht, pictured at the age of 20 in Germany, 1918. He was born on February 10, 1898 in Augsburg in the Bavarian section of the German Empire, and died on August 14, 1956 in East Berlin. Together with composer K. Weill in Berlin he wrote the ballad opera Die Dreigroschenoper (1928, The Threepenny Opera). In 1933 he went into exile, first in Scandinavia and then in the United States, where he did some film work in Hollywood, while in Nazi Germany his books were burned and his citizenship was withdrawn. During the McCarthy years in the USA Brecht was investigated for his Un-American Activities, and although he was not an official member of America's communist party Brecht left the United States for East Berlin in 1948. (KEYSTONE/DPA/STR) === , ===