Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht

The friendship between Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht is one of the most aesthetically and politically momentous of the 20th century. Hannah Arendt called the friendship »unique« »because this is where the greatest living German poet met the most important critic of the time«. Other friends did not share this opinion. Their suspicion led to misinterpretations that persist to this day.

This book preserves the traces of the friendship and in the process eliminates prejudices. Numerous unpublished documents enable new assessments. For the first time, the minutes of the conversations about the planned journal »Crisis and Criticism« (1930/31) are analysed and included in the volume as facsimiles. On the basis of letters, diary entries and notes, the themes of the collaboration are presented. Separate chapters are devoted to both Benjamin's work on Brecht and Brecht's remarks on Benjamin.

»If this book had appeared decades ago, it would have terminated an unproductive debate in one fell swoop: that of the influence – be it fruitful, be it disastrous – of probably the most significant German playwright and poet of the 20th century, Bertolt Brecht, on probably the most significant critic of his day, Walter Benjamin … Scrupulous, scholarly, and written with loving commitment.« Momme Brodersen, author of Walter Benjamin, A Biography

»What emerges from this rich selection of materials is not merely a fuller picture of these towering figures but also of the working life of intellectual production, deliberation, and publication on the part of a vibrant scene of letters, culture, and activism under threat of imminent dissolution.« Henry Sussman, Yale University

»With great archival expertise, Wizisla captures the spontaneity, energy, and excitement of Benjamin’s and Brecht’s thinking in process; their efforts to arrive at an aesthetic that expresses Communist practice; and their struggle to come to terms with Soviet reality under Stalin.« Gitta Honegger, Arizona State University

»Wizisla’s story of artistic and political radicalism in the darkest of times is a landmark publication. These two friends ›inhabited‹ their times supremely well; their traces ought to inspire us in ours.« Independent