Ruth Berlau (24 August 1906,

Charlottenlund Charlottenlund is a suburban area on the coast north of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is the administrative seat of Gentofte Municipality. Bordered to the east by the Øresund, to the South by Hellerup and to the north by Klampenborg, it is one of the w ...

– 15 January 1974,

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

) was a

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

actress, director, photographer and writer, known for her collaboration with

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

and for founding the Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv in Berlin. Tombstone Ruth Berlau

Born to a merchant family, she learned French at a convent school, but had to drop out due to a pregnancy at the age of thirteen. She studied acting and established her Danish reputation playing Anna in Brecht's ''

Drums in the Night ''Drums in the Night'' (''Trommeln in der Nacht'') is a play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wrote it between 1919 and 1920, and it received its first theatrical production in 1922. It is in the Expressionist style of Ernst Toll ...

''. During her teenage years, she financed a bicycle tour of France, by writing up a somewhat fictionalized account of her travels for a Danish newspaper. In 1930, she toured the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

by bicycle, and on her return joined the

Communist Party of Denmark The Communist Party of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Kommunistiske Parti, DKP) is a communist party in Denmark. The DKP was founded on 9 November 1919 as the Left-Socialist Party of Denmark (, VSP), through a merger of the Socialist Youth League and ...

. Later she took part behind the front lines in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. In 1933, she presented herself to the newly arrived Brecht and his wife

Helene Weigel Helene Weigel (; 12 May 19006 May 1971) was a German actress and artistic director. She was the second wife of Bertolt Brecht and was married to him from 1930 until his death in 1956. Together they had two children. Personal life Weigel was b ...

, then staying on

Fyn Funen ( da, Fyn, ), with an area of , is the third-largest island of Denmark, after Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy. It is the 165th-largest island in the world. It is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 469,947 as of ...

Thurø Thurø is a small Danish island in the south-east of Funen and belongs to the Svendborg municipality. Thurø is part of the South Funen Archipelago, comprising c. 55 islands altogether. The island had 3,555 inhabitants . Connected to Svendborg p ...

and within two years had become his lover. In 1936 or 1939, she divorced her husband, Dr Robert Lund, and threw herself into a collaboration with Brecht, acting as a secretary as well as writing, translating, photographing and directing. With Brecht, Berlau published the short story collection ''Jedes Tier kann es'', considered obscene in its time. In 1940, she followed the Brecht clan to Sweden, Finland, the USSR and finally to the United States, where a rupture with Brecht took place in 1944. In New York, she gave birth to her only child, who was born premature and only lived for a few days. After the war, she followed the Brechts to Berlin, but was blacklisted from the

Berliner Ensemble The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langhoff ...

by Weigel after Brecht's death in 1956.

Death

She died at age 67 in the

Charité The Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin (Charité – Berlin University of Medicine) is one of Europe's largest university hospitals, affiliated with Humboldt University and Free University Berlin. With numerous Collaborative Research Cen ...

hospital after setting her bed alight with a cigarette.

Writings

* ''Brechts Lai-Tu''. Erinnerungen und Notate. Hrsg. und mit einem Nachwort von Hans Bunge. Gudrun Bunge (Mitarbeit). Sammlung Luchterhand. Bd 698, Darmstadt, Neuwied, Luchterhand 1987, * ''Jedes Tier kann es''. Erzählungen. Mit einem Nachwort von Klaus Völker. Mannheim, Persona-Verlag 1989, (originally published as Maria Sten (pseud.): ''Ethvert dyr kan det'', København, Arthur Jensens Forlag, 1940)

References

External links

*
sketch at fembio
(in German)

a film documentary
Fuegi’s review
of the memoirs edited by Hans Bunge {{DEFAULTSORT:Berlau, Ruth 1906 births 1974 deaths People from Gentofte Municipality Danish communists Danish literary critics Women literary critics Modernist theatre Danish women short story writers Danish expatriates in Germany Danish expatriates in the United States Danish emigrants to East Germany Danish women dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Danish women writers 20th-century Danish short story writers Communist women writers 20th-century Danish dramatists and playwrights