Gérard Brach (23 July 1927 – 9 September 2006) was a French screenwriter[1] best known for his collaborations with the film directors Roman Polanski and Jean-Jacques Annaud.
[2] At the age of 16, he was persuaded by his family to enlist in the Charlemagne division of the Waffen-SS, reportedly witnessing action at the Battle of Königsberg towards the end of World War II.
[2][4] While a patient at the sanatorium he befriended the Dadaist poet Benjamin Péret, who introduced him to André Breton, author of the Surrealist Manifesto and a major influence on Brach's early work.
[2] He had further success, however, with his screenplays, working alongside directors of international renown such as Jean-Jacques Annaud, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Konchalovsky and Bertrand Blier.
His illness, he claimed in an interview, arrived "like a black cloud out of nowhere in the early 1980s", making him "break out in a cold sweat, shake and freeze in panic" as soon as he stepped outside.