Joseph Breitbach

Joseph Breitbach was born in Koblenz in 1903. He lived and worked mostly in Paris as a journalist, novelist and dramatist. His first novel Die Wandlung der Susanne Dasseldorf, highly praised by Klaus Mann, was banned in 1933, the manuscript of his following novel destroyed by the Nazis in Paris in 1940. His major work, Bericht über Bruno, one of the most important post-war political novels, was only published in 1962. The subjects of his still topical stage plays are labour politics, religion, marxism and their tangible effects on the individual. Breitbach died in Munich in 1980, a few days after completing his last play.