Der Leser macht das Kunstwerk? Brechts Gedicht “Der Rauch” und die Rezeptions sthetik in der DDR

The importance of the June 17th 1953 for the literature in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) shouldn’t be underestimated. Most of the active authors at that time took position in relation to the violent repression of the worker movement. So did it also the German writer and stage-manager Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). How the poem “Der Rauch” (The smoke), written by him at the time of construction of regime and as reaction to the events of the June 17th, can still nowadays tell to the reader, is the topic of this work. It will be based on the literature theory in the GDR, which in the seventies was occupied with the reception theory.