Helene Weigel

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Helene Weigel

Austrian actress and stage director

Also known as: Helene Weigl

Written by Kathleen Kuiper

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Quick Facts

Weigel originally spelled:: Weigl

Born:: May 12, 1900, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria]

Died:: May 6, 1971, East Berlin, East Germany [now Berlin, Germany] (aged 70)

Founder:: Berliner Ensemble

Notable Family Members:: spouse Bertolt Brecht

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Helene Weigel (born May 12, 1900, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now in Austria]—died May 6, 1971, East Berlin, East Germany [now Berlin, Germany]) was an Austrian actress and stage director who, with her husband, Bertolt Brecht, in 1949 established the Berliner Ensemble theatre group in what was then East Berlin. Weigel was born into an assimilated Jewish family during the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the model of her independent and professional mother (who owned and operated a toy store), the empowerment of the girls school she attended, and the encouragement of such successful women as Danish author Karin Michaëlis, ...(100 of 474 words)

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