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COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY 495
Mr. Stripling. Mr. Translator, would you translate the frontispiece of the magazine, please?
Mr. Baumgardt. "East and West, Contributions to Cultural and Political Questions of the Time, edited by Alfred Kantorowicz, Berlin, July 1947, first year of publication enterprise."
Mr. Stripling. Mr. Brecht, do you know the gentleman who is the •editor of the publication whose name was just read?
Mr. Brkciit. Yes; I know him from Berlin and I met him in New York again.
Mr. STRii'LiN(i. Do you know him to be a member of the Communist l*arty of Germany ?
Mr. Breciit. AVhen I met him in Germany I think he was a journalist on the Ullstein Press. That is not a Communist — was not a Communist— there were no Communist Party papers so I do not know ^^xactly whether he was a member of the Communist Party of Germany.
Mr. Stripling. You don't know whether he was a member of the 'Communist Party or not?
Mr. Brkciit. I don't know, no ; I don't know.
Mr. Stripling. In 1930 did you, with Hanns Eisler, write a play entitled, "'Die Massnahme"?
Mr. Brkciit. Die Massnahme.
Mr. Stripling. Did you write such a play ?
Mr. Brecht. Yes ; yes.
Mr. Stripling. Would you explain to the committee the theme of that play — what it dealt with?
Mr. Brecht. Yes ; I will try to.
Mr. Stripling. First, explain what the title means.
Mr. Brkciit. Die Massnahme means [speaking in German].
Mr. BAr:M(iARnT. Measures to be taken, or steps to be taken — measures.
Mr. Stripling. Could it mean disciplinary measures?
Mr. Baumgardt. No; not disciplinary measures; no. It means measures to be taken.
Mr. McDowell. Speak into the microphone.
Mr. Baumgardt. It means only measures or steps to be taken.
Mr. Stripling. All right.
You tell the conmiittee now, Mr. Brecht
Mr. Brecht. Yes.
Mr. Stripling (continuing). What this play dealt with.
Mr. Brecht. Yes. This play is the adaptation of an old religious Japanese play and is called No Play, and follows quite closely this old story which shows the devotion for an ideal until death.
Mr. Stripling. What was that ideal, Mr. Brecht?
Mr. Brecht. The idea in the old play was a religious idea. This young peoi)le
Mr. Stripling. Didn't it have to do with the Communist Party?
Mr. Brecht. Yes.
Mr. Stripling. And discii)line within the Communist Party? j
Mr. Brecht. Yes, yes; it is a ncAv play, an adaptation. It had as a j 'background the Russia-China of the years 1918 or 1919, or so. There i some Communist agitators went to a sort of no man's land between j the Russia which then was not a state and had no real