Corinna Harfouch & Die Tentakel von Delphi "VERTRIEBENE SIND WIR, VERBANNTE" - Bertolt Brecht im Exil - und davor x Harbour Front Literaturfestival Hamburg

“I always thought the name they gave us was wrong: emigrants.
That means ‘emigrants,’ after all. But we
didn’t emigrate of our own free will
to choose another country. Nor did we
into a country to stay there, perhaps forever.
Instead, we fled. We are displaced people, exiles.”
(Svendborg Poems)

Expelled from Germany by the Nazis in 1933, Bertolt Brecht’s work was shaped by reflections on the “duration of exile,” on remaining a stranger in a foreign land, on writing against Hitler, and, time and again, on the defense of poetry in a time of oppression. For fifteen years, he was driven “around the globe, changing countries more often than he changed his shoes.”

But hadn’t exile already begun before that? Why had they failed to stop the rise of the Nazis? What was it like to be a stranger in one’s own country even before 1933? Many texts written before his flight shape the experience of exile in his own country—the exile before exile. After the war, Bertolt Brecht—who remains one of the most significant authors of the 20th century—lived in East Berlin, where he died 70 years ago.

Corinna Harfouch and Die Tentakel von Delphi—Paula Sell, Hannes Gwisdek, Boris Nielsen, Moritz Bossmann, and Johannes Döpping—perform exile poems and texts from the 1920s, such as “From the Reader for City Dwellers.”

Corinna Harfouchis one of the best-known German actresses in film, television, and theater. Among other roles, she has performed at the Berliner Ensemble and worked with directors such as Heiner Müller, Frank Castorf, Jürgen Gosch, and Herbert Fritsch. She has also recently been appearing at the Thalia Theater. She has received numerous awards for her work in theater and film, including the Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring, the Grimme Prize, and the German Film Award twice.