Bertolt Brecht's Warning About Fascism

Bertolt Brecht was a German writer, poet and play director. He was a prominent anti-Nazi, and a pro-Marxist. He left Germany right after Hitler was appointed chancellor. During the war, he wrote the play, "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" (see actual German title in photo below), a satire in which, although he used Chicago as the setting, was based upon Hitler's rise to power in Germany, which he depicted through the use of a gangster and his henchmen. The quote below, in reference to Hitler, is from that play. Brecht also helped write the script for the American produced 1943 film, "Hangmen Also Die," a movie based on the assassination of prominent Nazi and SS leader, Reinhard Heydrich in Prague, in 1942. The title came from Heydrich being known to many as, "der Henker" (literally, "the hanger"); that is, "the Hangman." Heydrich played a major role in planning the murder of millions of Europe's Jews.

We live in an era of rising fascism, so pay heed to Brecht's words, although written in the early 1940s, when he lived in the United States. 

Quote: "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."

Photo is of the German paperback edition by Suhrkamp Verlag (1965)

 WORD HISTORY:
Over-This common word, related to "up," and to the "ove" part of "above," goes back to the Indo  European root "upo," with the notion of "from under" or "from below," "to go over/above." This then provided the base of a comparative form, "uper." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "uber," with the meaning, "above, over." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "ofer," with the same meaning and which then became "over," the spelling of which has remained the same for many centuries. Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German "über," Low German Saxon and Swedish "över," Dutch "over," West Frisian "oer" (compare the English contraction, more poetic, "o'er"), Danish and Norwegian "over," Icelandic "yfir." All have the same general meaning, "above, over," and also usually, "about," just as in English, "I was upset over (that is, "about") my lost money."