Brecht Weigel House
The Brecht-Weigel-Haus is a museum and a memorial for the artist couple Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel in Buckow in the Märkisch-Oderland district in Brandenburg .
The listed building ensemble largely got its present appearance after 1910, when the sculptor Georg Roch from Berlin-Schöneberg bought the property. He had the studio house built according to plans by Bruno Möhring , a gable-independent plastered building with a mansard gable roof and elements of the so-called Heimatstyle . Roch's sculptures still adorn the property today. The playwright and lyric poet Bertolt Brecht and the actress and director of the Berlin ensemble Helene Weigel worked in the summer residence he had bought from 1952, Helene Weigel also after Brecht's death in 1956 until her death in 1971. It was here that Brecht wrote the cycle of poems Buckower Elegien in July / August 1953 . Since 1977 the house has served as a place of remembrance and events.
Location and surroundings
The Brecht-Weigel-Haus is about 50 kilometers east of Berlin on the east bank of the Schermützelsee . The house is located at the southern end of Bertolt-Brecht-Straße, which turns into the hiking trail to the White Lake at the Werderfließbrücke . The trail is part of the European long-distance hiking trail E11 , the circular trail around the Schermützelsee and the terrain spa network of the Kneipp spa town of Buckow. The Buckowseepromenade, which runs along the southwestern bank of Buckowsee, begins diagonally across from the house on Werderfließ . Bertolt-Brecht-Strasse and the Ringstrasse to the north are built on with numerous mansions from the Wilhelminian era , some of which are protected in the hilly Werder between the lakes high above the eastern shore of the Schermützelsee and some of them are listed as historical monuments . This includes the Brecht-Weigel-Haus, which is located in the lower part of the street, slightly above the 26.5 meter high water level of the Schermützelsee. With 137 hectares, the lake is the largest body of water in Märkische Schweiz and is a Natura 2000 / FFH area in the center of the nature park of the same name .
Building history and property
The property and the building ensemble largely got their present appearance after 1910, when the sculptor Georg Roch from Berlin-Schöneberg bought the property.
Iron Villa (studio house)
A previous building made of an iron framework covered with sheet iron, the cavities of which were filled with sawdust, burned down completely in 1909. Since this building was used as a summer house and was empty for most of the months, all the windows were fitted with concertina bars. The name of the so-called “Iron Villa” was transferred to the successor building and is still in use today.
Georg Roch had the successor building, completed in 1911, built according to the designs of his friend Bruno Möhring as a gable-side plastered building with a mansard gable roof and elements of the so-called Heimatstyle . Windboards and shutters are provided with a white-green ornamental ribbon. The elegant country house is completely tailored to the needs of sculpture . The atelier consists of a spacious hall that extends over two floors and takes up 60% of the floor space. In the line of sight to the lake and the landing stage, the gable side facing the garden is dominated by a three-part studio window with numerous bars, which takes up almost the entire front and also extends over two floors. The lattice window and the hall provided light and space for large sculptural works of art. Above the studio window, three medallions in half relief testify to Roch's work.
Gardens and monument protection
There is also a garden house on the property that was later used by Brecht. The smaller and, according to Brecht, not baselessly built gardener's house is equipped with wide corner windows that allow a view of the silver surface of the Schermützelsee as if from a pulpit. The park-like garden also includes a boathouse, a landing stage and a balustrade on the lakeshore, which frame two fish-tailed horse sculptures by Roch. Not only are the buildings listed as architectural gems, but also the facilities on the lake side. The list of monuments states in detail :
" Summer residence of Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, consisting of a studio house, chauffeur and gardener's house with side wing and veranda, pavilion over ice cellar and garages, boathouse, water tower and park-like garden with lake balustrade, bridge, boat and bathing jetty, garden sculptures, flower garden and property fencing on the street . "
In the garden, five copper panels with poems from the Buckower elegies form a reference to Brecht's work.
Brecht and Weigel in Buckow
Purchase of the property
After their return to Germany in October 1948 and after their settlement in East Berlin , the artist couple looked for a quiet place in the tense period of the early 1950s, which manifested itself in the formalism dispute, from time to time to withdraw from artistic and political debates and to be able to concentrate on their work undisturbed. Based on the model of the country estate of the Estonian - Finnish writer Hella Wuolijoki , with whom they had found refuge for a few months in 1940, they had in mind a quiet, forest-surrounded piece of land by a lake. The couple found what they were looking for in Buckow. The property of the sculptor, who died in 1943, was for sale and Brecht noted in his journal: Something like this would be affordable and guests could be invited to the larger house. In the spring of 1952, Brecht and Weigel took the first visitors through their renovated refuge and on July 15, 1952, Brecht wrote in his journal: The house and surroundings in Buckow are neat enough that I can read a little Horace again . According to a report by Käthe Rülicke-Weiler , after purchasing the property, Brecht said self-deprecatingly: I now belong to a new class - the tenants!
Setup and use
Helene Weigel moved into the "Iron Villa". The kitchen and a library were set up on the ground floor next to the hall, and bedrooms and guest rooms on the upper floor. The hall with a view of the garden and lake served as a dining room and place for socializing and intellectual exchange with friends and employees. A long, scuffed wooden table formed the communicative center of the room. Weigel placed a bridal chair from 1793 with Worpswede cane weave at the head of the table for himself . Bertolt Brecht, on the other hand, moved into the smaller gardener's house, his sphere of isolation , to live and work undisturbed . The author and publisher Bernd Erhard Fischer sums up: This kept closeness and distance, joie de vivre and isolation in balance, and the poet could either take part in the events in the “Iron Villa” or refuse to do so. The poet simply furnished his work rooms with a table and chair on the bare floorboards, two armchairs on the veranda, books, a Chinese scroll painting and a screen . In 1954 he wrote to his publisher Peter Suhrkamp :
"It is really advisable to live in houses and with furniture that are at least 120 years old, that is, in an earlier capitalist environment, until you have a later socialist one."
Brecht got himself a walking stick, wore white tennis shoes and was happy about every newly discovered corner, every tree and bush in his garden. An etching by Arno Mohr from 1960 shows Brecht with a flat cap, clasped hands behind his back and smoking a cigarillo, as he walks towards his study in the gardener's house. To relax from her theatrical work, Weigel read mountains of detective novels, roamed the woods in search of mushrooms, cooked and placed patience . Brecht and Weigel enjoyed the conversations with the numerous guests - directors, actors, musicians and writers - very much. However, Weigel made sure that Brecht's rest from work was not disturbed too much.
Brecht works from this period and Buckower elegies
Brecht worked in Buckow mainly on the play Turandot ( Turandot or the Congress of the White Washer ) and on his version of Shakespeare's Coriolanus . In addition, numerous verses like fir trees were written here , in which he let his feelings of the surrounding nature flow mostly like a parable. In Böser Morgen he addressed the silver poplar that towered over both houses directly, but it was not about the tree. Here, too, nature served him to describe the relationships among humans. In July / August 1953 he wrote the cycle of poems Buckower Elegien , in which, as in the poem The Solution (Wouldn't it be easier, the government dissolved the people and elected another?) , In the poetic reflection of the events of the 17th June 1953 took a clearly distant stance towards the GDR government.
Contact with the Buckowers
According to Bernd Erhard Fischer, it was only after several disputes with the People's Police at the Hoppegarten checkpoint and after tough wrestling with the Ministry of Customs and Goods Traffic that Brecht was able to get his portable typewriter into the country, but he was considered to be Buckowern but rather as a privileged fat cat . There was almost no contact with the local population. Brecht recorded only a single conversation with a plumber, who complained bitterly about the miserable situation of his trade, the bloated bureaucratic apparatus and the general living conditions. Bernd Erhard Fischer continues:
“Here he was evidently seen as a privileged person who received building materials where ordinary citizens missed out. [...] What kind of strange people were those who the little man in the balloon cap picked up from the train station in his own car? It was rumored that he had several lovers at once. […] During the day they hung around lazily on the jetty or rowed on the lake. That could only be a bigwig! "
The Brecht biographer Werner Hecht also found that hardly any of the two and a half thousand inhabitants of Buckow knew who this man was and what he wrote and staged during Brecht's lifetime. When he set about opening the house to the public on behalf of the Ministry of Culture in 1977, he encountered a lack of understanding among the locals and the local authorities.
Now used as a museum and event location
After Helene Weigel's death in 1971, the Brecht heirs sold the central section with the “Iron Villa” to the state in order to set up a memorial in it. The gardener's house remained in the possession of the heirs and cannot be visited. It was lived in by Brechts / Weigel's daughter Barbara Brecht-Schall until her death on August 31, 2015.
Since 1977 the Brecht-Weigel-Haus has served as a museum and memorial for the artist couple together with the garden. With its exhibitions and events such as the annual literary summer with readings, song afternoons, concerts, roundtables and films, the house was presented by the initiative Germany - Land of Ideas as “Selected Location 2006”. In addition to the “Iron Villa”, the boathouse serves as an exhibition space. This is where the legendary covered wagon from the production Mother Courage and Her Children in the Deutsches Theater from January 11, 1949 and the costumes by Helene Weigel, who played the role of Mother Courage for the first time in this performance, are located. At the fence on the street side, the "Iron Villa" welcomes visitors with a large banner and Brecht's words from 1951:
“The great Carthago fought three wars. It was still powerful after the first, still habitable after the second. It could not be found after the third. "
literature
- Bernd Erhard Fischer (text), Angelika Fischer (photos): Brecht & Weigel in Buckow. Edition A · B · Fischer, Berlin 2005 (here after 3rd edition 2011) ISBN 978-3-937434-06-3 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ 3450-307 Schermützelsee. (FFH area) Profiles of the Natura 2000 areas. Published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation . Retrieved November 26, 2017.
- ↑ Brandenburg-Viewer, Digital Topographic Maps 1: 10,000 (click on the menu).
- ↑ a b c d Brecht-Weigel-Haus Buckow: History.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 8f.
- ↑ Quoted from: Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 7.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 3, 9.
- ↑ List of monuments of the state of Brandenburg: Landkreis Märkisch-Oderland (PDF) Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 7.
- ↑ Quotations from: Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 7, 12.
- ↑ Quoted from: Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 9.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... pp. 10f, 14f.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 11.
- ↑ Quoted from: Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 15.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 10f, 14.
- ^ Arno Mohr : Etching Brecht in Buckow , 1960, on Artnet.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 17, 24.
- ↑ Bertolt Brecht, The Solution , 1953, in: Works. Large annotated Berlin and Frankfurt edition , ed. by Werner Hecht, Jan Knopf, Werner Mittenzwei and Klaus-Detlef Müller, Berlin and Weimar / Frankfurt / M. 1988-1998 and 2000, Vol. 12, p. 310.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 11, 20ff.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 16. See also: Seven letters from Bertolt Brecht from the fifties. Zeit-Online, p. 3.
- ↑ Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow . ... p. 16.
- ↑ Werner Hecht : At the water of the Schermützelsee - Bertolt Brecht in Buckow. Ed .: Landkreis Märkisch-Oderland, Buckow 1994. Reproduced from a quote from Hecht in: Bernd Erhard Fischer, Angelika Fischer: Brecht & Weigel in Buckow. ... p. 17.
- ↑ Actress and heiress: Barbara Brecht-Schall is dead , Spiegel Online , September 1, 2015
- ^ Brecht-Weigel-Haus Buckow, front page.
- ^ Brecht-Weigel-Haus Buckow, exhibition building.
- ↑ Original quote in: Bertolt Brecht: Writings on politics and society. Ed .: Werner Hecht. Volume 2, 1933-1956. Aufbau-Verlag , Berlin 1968. pp. 243f (explanations on the Paris agreements) .
Coordinates: 52 ° 34 '3.9 " N , 14 ° 3' 46.9" E