New Information from the FBI, CNDI LA-BB-1: The Surveillance of Bertolt Brecht’s Telephone in Los Angeles

Abstract

On the FBI’S homepage, http://http://www.fbi.gov/, there is a link that reads “Freedom of Information Act. Frequently requested FBI files.” Clicking on this spot leads to a file that, much like “America’s Most Wanted,” contains information on dozens of prominent “subjects” about whom the FBI has collected material. Delving deeper into this electronic reading room’s table of contents, under the heading “Famous Persons”—alongside people like “Machine Gun Kelly,” Bonnie and Clyde, and Pretty Boy Floyd—one finds the name of Bertolt Brecht. Another double-click finally opens up access to materials that have long been inaccessible, kept under lock and key both in the FBI archive in Washington, D.C. and in the Brecht archive in Berlin, known only to a small group of initiated Brecht researchers. This is the 369-page FBI file on Bertolt Brecht, who after Thomas Mann was the most famous exiled German author in the United States.