Thomas Brasch Retrospective

Born in England to Kindertransport refugees who were active Communists, Thomas Brasch came to embody the fault lines of German history like few other artists. As his father rose in the ranks of East Germany’s ruling party, Brasch became an uncompromisingly radical writer whose activism led to censorship and prison. After his move to West Germany, he refused to play the role of GDR dissident and focused his critique on West German society and German history in plays, poetry, and a series of brilliant but challenging films. Although he is highly regarded as a translator of Chekhov’s and Shakespeare’s works into German, none of Brasch’s own writing has ever been published in English. His major films, jarring meditations on German history such as The Passenger – Welcome to Germany (1988, starring Tony Curtis as a choleric Hollywood director who returns to Germany to make a film about his experience in a concentration camp), are rarely shown in the United States.

This spring, Leo Baeck Institute, the Goethe-Institut New York, the German Film Office, the German Consulate General in New York, Deutsches Haus at NYU, and the Friends of Freiburg Alumni of North America will re-introduce audiences to this remarkable artist and story.