'Ebenso hiess das Mädchen nicht andauernd Marie': Vier (fast) unbekannte Frauenbriefe an Bertolt Brecht aus den Jahren 1916 bis 1918. ['Ebenso hiess das Mädchen nicht andauernd Marie': four letters from (almost) unknown women to Bertolt Brecht in the years 1916 to 1918.]

In 1989 the City of Augsburg bought a bundle of papers for its Brecht Collection, which includes four letters from young Augsburg women to Brecht in the short period between 28 December 1916 and 1 May 1918. They are published here for the first time in their entirety. The letters are from Elisabeth Krause (the later Lilly Prem), Maria Rosa Amann, Paula Banholzer and an unknown author. The letters are amongst the earliest testimonies of Brecht's lively interest in girls. The documents not only provide an insight into his love affairs - including their beginnings - which already at this early stage were overlaying each other, but also into the genesis of the poem 'Bonnie Mac Sorel freite' in 1916. It may well have been inspired by a specific event in Brecht's relationship with Maria Rosa Amann, to whom it is dedicated. Far from being a conventional love poem, 'Bonne Mac Sorel freite' is, like other poems and presents which Brecht dedicated to young women, a warning about his unreliability and his intention to exchange one partner for another. (Author abstract)