Emsie Ferreira

Germany is honouring Bertolt Brecht with fanfare on the 50th anniversary of his death, hinting that the country is ready at last to embrace the playwright and poet as a national hero and forgive him for going to his grave a communist. There is no ignoring Brecht as theatres from Berlin to Bonn to Hanover dust off his plays.

Germany’s two main parties cleared the way on Wednesday for a grand left-right coalition to break the country’s political deadlock and said they would meet within a day to thrash out who would lead it. Officials in Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats said a leadership summit would be held on Thursday.