Translated from the German by Christine Shuttleworth

This book explores the friendship, from the mid 1920s, between the playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht and the critic Walter Benjamin. It considers this relationship for what it meant for each of them personally, for their lives as writers, and for the effect it had on their other friendships. This last was significant for Benjamin because two of his closest admirers and important patrons – Gershom Scholem (in Jerusalem) and Theodor Adorno – tended to be hostile towards Brecht, concerned about his political influence. In fact, Benjamin and Brecht are often seen here together at a time of impending and actual political crisis, and are shown to form part of a distinguished constellation of writers and artists in Weimar Germany, including Adorno himself, Hannah Arendt, Ernst Bloch, Karl Korsch, Siegfried Kracauer, and Klaus Mann.

The author presents and considers Benjamin’s published and unpublished critical work on Brecht’s poetry, plays and novels; he also considers Brecht’s views on Benjamin (including his Baudelaire and Kafka studies). The book also gives the first account of the Berlin Marxist journal planned for 1931, to be called ‘Crisis and Criticism’. The minutes of its meetings record the involvement of Benjamin and Brecht, and give some idea of the discussions on literature and politics which took place under the increasing threat of the German left’s political defeat.

Using unpublished material, including correspondence, the author sets the public lives of the two men, amongst their political friends and comrades, in the context of their private lives. This often includes the women who surrounded Brecht, including his wife Helene Weigel, whom Benjamin also knew. This other, minor constellation centred on the Brechts’ family home in Denmark, where Benjamin spent many weeks, playing chess with Brecht and others, and card and board-games with Brecht’s children. It provides another, more informal, context for observing the two men whose mutual regard and affection surprised some people, was never fully accepted by others, and yet is important for a proper understanding of both.

Published by Libris in 2009