Ernst Busch

Ernst Busch (born January 22, 1900, Kiel, Germany—died June 8, 1980, East Berlin, East Germany [now Berlin, Germany]) was a German actor and singer best known as the leading interpreter of roles created by the dramatist Bertolt Brecht.

Busch came from a working-class family, joined the German Communist Party, and took up acting professionally when he lost his job with the Krupp manufacturing company. He moved to Berlin in 1925 and three years later played in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. Busch also gained wide recognition as a singer, interpreting songs by Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill. He left Germany when the Nazis took power in 1933 and lived in various European countries and the U.S.S.R. before fighting as a member of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Imprisoned during World War II, he was condemned to death by the Gestapo but was later reprieved; he was severely tortured before his release in 1945. Returning to East Berlin, he performed with the Deutsches Theater and with Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble, where he gave memorable interpretations in Mother Courage, The Mother, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Galileo. After he retired from acting in 1961, Busch continued his career as a singer and remained one of the most-respected figures in East German theatre.