Brecht Days 2026 at the Natural History Museum

The 2026 Brecht Days, running from 6 to 13 February, will focus in particular on the industrialisation of agriculture and, by extension, the relationship between technology and nature. Together with experts and authors, the programme will explore Brecht’s planetary poetics and its connections to current debates, the looming climate collapse, and the transformation of industrial society in the Anthropocene.For the first time, the events will take place not only at the Literaturforum in the Brecht-Haus, but at several venues across the city. The programme also includes lectures, guided tours and panel discussions at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin on Wednesday 11 February. 

As part of this year’s Brecht Days, the festival is dedicated to a theme that could scarcely be more topical: ‘The Earth, the Great Nourisher’. This thematic focus offers a fresh perspective on Bertolt Brecht and highlights aspects that have hitherto rarely been associated with his work – agriculture, food and cultivation.

These are by no means marginal issues. Questions of food and agricultural production are deeply political: they touch on power relations, social conflicts and ideas about how people live with and manage the earth. This year, the Brecht Days explore how Brecht engaged with agriculture as a site of power, conflict and imagination.

Brecht repeatedly reflected on cultivation and nutrition as political practice. One example is the text “The Education of Millet”, written in East Berlin, whose reflections resonate powerfully today with current debates on productivity, scarcity, sustainability and care. Against the backdrop of global crises – from climate change and the loss of biodiversity to finite resources – these questions are taking on new urgency.

“For a museum dedicated to understanding life on Earth – its history, its fragility and its complex interrelationships – engaging with Brecht’s thinking is particularly relevant,” says Dr Julia Diekämper from the Network for Nature Knowledge at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin. “It calls on us not only to re-examine environmental and food policies, but also to question the way in which knowledge about nature is generated, communicated and institutionally embedded.”

Christian Hippe, Head of the Literature Forum at the Brecht House, thanks all the partner institutions involved and looks forward to the collaboration: “The Brecht Days 2026 will take to the streets and seek out intersections between discourses and places. Futurium, the Museum of Natural History and the Planetarium will become stages for presenting new perspectives on Brecht’s work – to correct or further develop Brecht’s ideas.”

Partner institutions:

• Network for Natural Sciences at the Museum of Natural History Berlin
• Zeiss Großplanetarium Berlin
• Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
• Department of Literary Studies at the Technical University of Berlin
• andcompany&Co.

You can find the programme for the Brecht Days here.

You can find the programme at the Museum of Natural History, Berlin here.