The Threepenny Opera

Though set in Victorian England, Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1928) is embedded in the volatile political climate of the Weimar Republic, a period defined by economic crises, ideological struggles, and the erosion of democratic stability. Preceded by the German Empire, also called the Second Reich, the Weimar Republic was established after Germany’s defeat in World War I. On November 9, 1918, Philipp Scheidemann of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SDP) proclaimed the beginning of the Weimar Republic. Shortly after, Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SDP, became the president of the republic. This was the first time in history that the whole German territory was united under one democratically elected government. The Weimar Republic would last from 1918 until the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933 (also called the Third Reich).

The years following World War I saw Germany in a difficult economic and geopolitical situation. The Treaty of Versailles (1919) imposed crushing reparations, which led to hyperinflation, mass unemployment, and widespread discontent. Political factions clashed across ideological lines. For example, on the left, the Marxist Spartacist League, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, championed the working class, arguing that the new government was suppressing the proletariat revolution. They organized an uprising in January 1919, which was suppressed, at the orders of Ebert, with the help of the Freikorps. The Freikorps, a paramilitary organization composed of WWI veterans and employed by the government to suppress the uprising, subsequently assassinated Luxemburg and Liebknecht. The Freikorps also supported right-wing factions, participated in assassinations of public figures, and later helped the Nazis dismantle the Republic. Overall, the fragile democracy struggled to maintain legitimacy, as it faced immense pressure from both leftist revolutionaries and reactionary forces.

Brecht’s plays reflect this instability by depicting a world where crime, corruption, and capitalism are indistinguishable from one another, thus mirroring the moral and political chaos of the time. In this, it mirrors much Marxist thought of the time. Brecht’s vision, as expressed in The Threepenny Opera’s depiction of a corrupt world where crime and business are indistinguishable, was particularly informed by Marx’s theory of historical materialism, which argues that societal structures are shaped by economic forces and that capitalism comes with inherent contradictions. 

Brecht’s artistic methods were also shaped by avant-garde movements like Dadaism, which condemned bourgeois art, as well as Soviet theatrical innovations, particularly those of Vsevolod Meyerhold, who used self-consciously theatrical, fourth-wall breaking techniques such as on-stage posters commenting on the play and stylized sets and costumes (Eaton, Katharine. “Brecht’s Contacts with the Theater of Meyerhold.” Comparative Drama, vol. 11, no. 1, 1977, pp. 3-21). Brecht’s epic theater rejected traditional realism, using alienation techniques—direct address, jarring music, and sudden narrative disruptions—to prevent audiences from passively absorbing the drama. This approach forced viewers to critically analyze the structures of power portrayed in the play, drawing direct parallels between Weimar’s fragile democracy and the larger forces of capitalist exploitation.