Thomas Brasch

Born in Westow, Yorkshire, England, Thomas Brasch was the son of German Jewish Communist émigré parents. In 1947, the family returned to East Germany. Brasch attended school in Cottbus. From 1956 to 1960, he was at the National People's Army Cadet School and made his Abitur. From 1964, he studied journalism in Leipzig and was forced in 1965 to ex-matriculate. Since 1966 he worked at the theater Volksbühne Berlin, and studied dramaturgy at the film school Babelsberg afterwards. In 1968, he was relegated and sentenced to two years and three months in prison for "anti-state agitation", because of the protest against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. In 1971, after being a miller in a Berlin factory, he worked in the Brecht archive and was then freelance writer. In 1976, after protesting against Wolf Biermann's expatriation, he moved to West Germany. Brasch was in a relationship with the actress Katharina Thalbach. Brasch died in Berlin on 3 November 2001.

In May 2012, Brasch's play Lovely Rita was performed in English for the first time in the Warwick Arts Centre.

In November 1976, Brasch's theatre piece Paper Tiger was performed in English for the first time at the 4th International Bertolt Brecht Conference in Austin, Texas, with music composed by Raymond Benson. Benson subsequently directed an off-off-Broadway production of the musical in New York, New York, in September 1980.

1981 – Engel aus Eisen – Director and screenwriter (with Hilmar Thate, Katharina Thalbach, Peter Brombacher, Klaus Pohl, Ulrich Wesselmann, Hermann Killmeyer and Karin Baal). That was the first movie by Brasch. In 1981 he was awarded the Bayerischer Filmpreis. His acceptance speech was controversial, since Brasch explicitly thanked the Filmhochschule der DDR for his education. 1982 – Domino – Director and screenwriter (with Katharina Thalbach, Bernhard Wicki, Hanns Zischler, Anne Bennent, Manfred Karge, Ilse Pagé, Klaus Pohl, Peter Brombacher, Julia Lindig) 1985 – Mercedes – Director and screenwriter. Filming for Dutch broadcaster VPRO (with Jan Eijkelboom, Annet Kouwenhoven and Titus Muizelaar) 1988 – Der Passagier – Welcome to Germany – Director, screenwriter with Jurek Becker (with Tony Curtis, Katharina Thalbach, Birol Ünel, Matthias Habich, Karin Baal, Charles Régnier, Ursula Andermatt and George Tabori)