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Peter Hoff: Neues Deutschland, 29.9.2003: www.iminform.de/iminform/newsletter/Archiv/iminform-newsletter2003-07.htmll
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Ernst Schumacher: Berliner
Zeitung, 13.4.2004: http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2004/0413/feuilleton/0006/index.htmll?keywords=Ingrid%20Pietrzynski;every=1;utf8=1;mark=ingrid%20pietrzynski
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Ansgar Diller: Bertolt Brecht
als Rundfunkpublizist in der DDR. In: Fernseh-Informationen, H. 2/2004, S. 2
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Bernhard Kellner: Händeringen
ums Radio. Brechts Bemühungen um offenen DDR-Rundfunk. In: Sprachrohr
(Verdi-Zeitschrift Berlin-Brandenburg), H. 3/2004, S. 12
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Sabine Schiller-Lerg:
Rezension. In: Rundfunk und Geschichte, H. 3-4/2004, S. 56-57.
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Rezension
von Hannes Schwenger in: Zeitschrift des Forschungsverbundes SED-Staat, Augabe 17/2005, S. 214ff.
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Besprechung Marc Silberman in: Mahagonny.com.
The Brecht Yearbook 29, University of Wisconsin, Madison, S. 441-444:
- "Brecht's attention to the radio broadcast medium accompanied his
more general interest in developing artistic forms with an interventionist
and democratizing quality for public discussions. The onset of broadly based
Brecht scholarship afterthe publication of the complete works in 1967 led to
the. "discovery" of a series of scattered, occasional essays on
the radio as well as renewed attention to some of the plays and Lehrstücke
that were adapted by Brecht for radio broadcast in the Weimar Republic.
Indeed, there was talk in West Germany during the 1970s of Brechts "radio
theory," and a media critic like Hans Magnus Enzensberger was inspired
by ßrecht's early efforts to reflect on new ways for resisting and "refunctioning"
the capitalist consciousness industry. Despite the additional material
published in the new Berlin and Frankfurt edition, much less is known about
Brecht's later interest in the radio and his engagement with the East German
broadcast medium after his return there. Ingrid Pietrzynski, a media
sociologist and historian at the Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv in
Potsdam-Babelsberg, offers in the volume under review an exhaustive overview
of this latter topic with the aim of dispelling the accepted wisdom that
Brecht was uninterested in the GDR radio.
The study's four sections reconstruct the entire spectrum concerning
"Brecht and GDR radio." In the process of researching the relevant
material Pietrzynski, who unearthed unpublished documents as well as
"lost" tapes of actual radio broadcasts, pieces together a mosaic
that confirms the image of the "late" Brecht as an artist who
never ceased to use his prestige and artistic ideas to initiate critical
dialogue and democratic participation in the face of an intransigent
political apparatus in the young GDR. Section one focuses on Brecht's
engagement in literary and musical broadcasts, beginning with the very few
programs about the writer prior to his arrival in the GDR through his
initial restraint vis-à-vis the medium (probably owing to the priorities of
establishing the Berliner Ensemble), his direct participation in literary
programs from the Berliner Ensemble (mainly in cooperation with the radio
editor Maximilian Scheer) and the radio reviews of Berliner Ensemble
productions. Pietrzynski details every program for which evidence points to
some kind of involvement by Brecht, often through his assistants and the
"Meisterschüler" of the theater ensemble. The very fact that he
insisted on having a fully equipped sound Studio installed at the Theater am
Schiffbauerdamm indicates his foresight and made it unique among GDR
theaters, while the actual programming that emerged from the Ensemble
reveals interesting links to lessons of the late 1920s. Brecht's approach,
especially for broadcasts that went beyond excerpts from current Ensemble
productions, was essentially that of a magazine format, an "epic"
montage of loosely connected prose and lyrical texts, songs, and Statements
organized around a theme. The five programs were, according to Pietrzynski,
distinctive in the landscape of the GDR broadcast medium for the balanced
political approach and the natural speaking style, which contrasted with the
habitual optimism and diction of normal radio fare.
Section two Covers the radio and television versions of Brecht's plays
broadcast in the GDR. Already prior to his arrival in 1949, the Berliner
Rundfunk in the Soviet Occupied Zone had produced five radio adaptations of
scenes or play excerpts (and Brecht did not hesitate to demand the royalties
owed him for these and other unauthorized broadcasts of his texts).
Thereafter the DDR-Rundfunk broadcast only two additional radio plays, Die
Gewehre der Frau Carrar in 1953 and Der kaukasische Kreidekreis in
1954, while a planned radio Version of Galilei was not realized.
Apparently Brecht's production demands were considered extravagant, and his
(historical and historicizing) plays were Seen as irrelevant for the topical
political issues favored by the radio administration. Although Brecht did
not possess a television set, he was keen about cooperation between his
theater and this new broadcast medium. In fact, one of the first theater
broadcasts for the new GDR television program was Die Gewehre der Frau
Carrar, adapted in September 1953 by Egon Monk and Peter Palitzsch. This
was followed by a live broadcast in 1954 of Manfred Wekwerth's production of
the political comedy, Hirse für die Achte and a full-length
transmission of Pauken und Trompeten from the Berliner Ensemble in
December 1955. As Pietrzynski points out, there exists almost no commentary
by Brecht about the aesthetic possibilities of this new medium; indeed, he
seemed to regard it primarily as a means of documenting his theatrical work,
comparable to the extensive photographs in the Modellbücher.
The third section of this documentation takes up the primary object of
Brecht's media attention, the political role of the GDR radio in its
self-proclaimed function as the "voice of the Republic."
Understanding all too well his own position in the context of cold-war
ideological tensions, Brecht restrained himself from making public
Statements about what he saw as Iow quality and undemocratic practices on
the radio's political programming, instead addressing his complaints and
suggestions to party leaders and functionaries in the Cultural Ministry. His
critique of the radio's "weak Propaganda," for example, led him to
propose programming by artists who could build on the agitprop aesthetics
developed during the Weimar Republic. The failure of the GDR radio to react
at all to the events of June 17, 1953 (it ceded political commentary to the
West Berlin RIAS Station, and instead programmed exclusively operetta
melodies) led to Brecht's harshest Statements about the political death of
radio broadcasting in the GDR. Pietrzynski narrates Brecht's various (unsuccessful)
efforts to contact radio editors with program ideas, but also ventures the
opinion that the revolutionary songs and political Statements Brecht was
proposing probably would have fared no better among the radio listeners than
the utter silence of the political leadership. In the months following the
workers' uprising Brecht used his position as Vice President of the Academy
of Arts to articulate rigorous criticism of the radio establishment and to
demand that the Academy obtain autonomous radio broadcast time for its
members. The brief window of opportunity opened by the paralysis of
political leadership after June 17 was not adequate for the kind of changes
Brecht envisioned, and it becomes apparent that distance and mistrust
characterized the relationship of the radio editors to intellectuals and
artists. Most importantly the functionaries in Charge of the broadcast
medium did not see themselves as responsible and responsive to the audience
and critics, but rather as part of the party apparatus, serving its needs
for stability and influence. Nonetheless, Pietrzynski is able to demonstrate
that among the entire Academy leadership. Brecht was the Single most active
and insistent member in working for a media presence of artists both within
and beyond the borders of the GDR.
Although Brecht was himself hardly involved in the actual production of the
radio program "Stunde der Akademie," as detailed in Section four,
he originated the idea in Fall 1953 and was successful in fighting the
bureaucracy for its realization with an unprecedented level of artistic
autonomy. After many delays and compromises the program went on the air in
January 1955 and broadcast 20 features through Spring 1956. Brecht's mark
can be seen in the "epic" shape of the 30-minute program spots as
well as in the presence of recitators and singers from the Berliner Ensemble
who used the Ensemble's sound Studio for taping sessions. The unpretentious,
unstaged presentation of dialogues, the natural and sometimes purposefully
quiet tone of voices for reports, and the live interviews with guests at
Academy exhibition openings were all unfamiliar stylistic elements in GDR
broadcasting at the time. Here finally Brecht was able to implement some of
the practical suggestions he had developed in the late 1920s. Indeed, he
emerges overall as a savvy media practitioner who understood the advantages
of the radio: topicality, tempo, and directness. Yet, as Pietrzynski
concludes-and one might generalize this for all of his activities in the GDR-Brecht
emerges as an artist who saw himself as a competent and equal partner in
dialogue with those in power. That this was an illusion and that his tactics
of cautiously promoting small changes actually helped maintain the
authoritarian structures of power probably became more and more obvious to
him after 1953.
In sum, Pietrzynski presents a carefully researched overview of a little
known aspect of Brecht's work in the GDR. It should interest not only those
concerned with his radio practice but also those who seek a case study of
how Brecht tried to negotiate the contradictory demands of his own
innovative aesthetics, the increasingly narrow constraints of official
socialist realism, and the intractable centralization of party power. The
carefully edited volume includes numerous photographs and facsimiles of
archival documents as well as an enormous apparatus (almost half of the
entire volume) with unpublished transcripts of radio programs, a lengthy
chronology, an extensive bibliography, and two indices.