“Fear and Misery of the Third Reich” was written by Brecht in the late 1930’s and completed shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In a series of twenty-four self-contained scenes or playlets’, he purported to chronicle the period between Hitler’s installation as German Chancellor in January 1933 and the Nazi entry into Vienna following the Anschluss with Austria in 1938. Brecht’s aim was to demonstrate how deeply and disastrously National Socialism had effected ordinary life in Germany during this period. As he himself described it, this play is, “…a catalogue of attitudes, the attitudes of keeping silent, looking over one’s shoulder, feeling frightened etc. – behavior in a dictatorship”.