Elisabeth Hauptmann (1897–1973)

Elisabeth Hauptmann was born in Peckelsheim, Westphalia, Germany to an American mother, and a German father who was a physician. She was initially tutored at home by her mother Josefine with her two siblings, learning English at a very young age. From 1912 to 1918, she trained as a teacher and worked in a school in Linde in 1918-1922. In 1922, she worked as a secretary for poet and writer Herman George Scheffauer in Berlin. There she met Berthold Brecht and began collaborating with him on his works in 1924, originally as his editor and translator. At the same time, she was a freelance writer, contributing short stories to magazines. She become co-author of The Threepenny Opera, writing the majority of the text as well as providing a German translation of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, on which the musical play was based. She reportedly wrote at least half of the opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, but was not credited. She was the main text author of the musical Happy End (1929) under the pseudonym Dorothy Lane. When the Nazi regime rose to power in 1933, Brecht left Germany for Denmark. Hauptmann visited him there and was arrested after her return to Germany. After her release, she moved to Paris and in 1934 left for the USA. She lived in New York City, then with her sister in St. Louis, and worked as a high school teacher. In 1941, she returned to New York, and married German composer and conductor Paul Dessau in 1948. She went back to Europe in 1949 and was divorced from Dessau in 1952. In 1954, she became a playwright at Brecht's theatrical company Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin. After his death in 1956, she published his works at the Suhrkamp publishing house. In 1961, Hauptmann received the Lessing Prize from the Ministry of Culture of East Germany. In 1977, a collection of her works was published under the title Julia ohne Romeo (Julia without Romeo).