If they asked me, I could write a book, Rowan--I didn't really get into any discussion of the things that really interest me about the works themselves, aesthetically or politically--It is a point worth noting that the film version of "Threepenny Opera" was directed by GW Pabst, who was one of the leading exponents of Expressionism.

PG--Brecht had practically no place to go--he'd been invited to the Allied occupied zone, and that invitation had been rescinded, in Switzerland, he had worn out his welcome, when it came to light that he'd been granted Austrian citizenship, the outrage was so great that the project that he was working on, which was a revival of the Saltzburg Festival, completely collapsed, and he essentially was handed his walking papers.

When he returned, the GDR had not yet been formed, and "East Berlin" was simply the Russian occupied territory, and it wasn't necessarily clear what the future would be. Brecht was not alone, many German intellectuals went to the Eastern Zone with the hope of rebuilding the devastation in a better way.

Certainly there were romantics among them, but Brecht was no romantic. He was a playwright, whose ongoing goal was simple to create and produce his work.

There were certainly others Germans who left the US for the Communist Bloc. Vladimir Pozner, who was for years a fixture on a variety of news programs, grew up in the US and returned with his family to East Germany in the 50's. His father was actual a friend of Brecht's. And you could ask Pozner to explain why his family went back, but you'd have to go to Moscow, where he now runs a restaurant.

Another to ask about the appeal of East Germany would have been Dean Reed. Though he was labelled "The Red Elvis", he was one of us--an American folkie who played Lomax and Woody and Weavers tunes, and embraced a lot of New Left ideas. He was a big star and made a lot of money on the other side.   You can't ask him, though, they found him floating in the water near the boat dock on his palatial estate. Hmm.