Johannes Robert Becher (pronounced [jo.ˈha.nəs ˈɛʁ ˈbɛ.çɐ] ⓘ, 22 May 1891 – 11 October 1958) was a German politician, novelist, and poet.

After the end of World War II, Becher left the Soviet Union and returned to Germany, settling in the Soviet-occupied zone that later became East Berlin.

As a member of the KPD, he was appointed to various cultural and political positions and became part of the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party.

An injury from his suicide attempt made him unfit for military service/ and he became addicted to morphine, which he struggled with for the rest of the decade.

In 1925 government reaction against his anti-war novel, (CHCI=CH)3As (Levisite) oder Der einzig gerechte Krieg, resulted in his being indicted for "literarischer Hochverrat" or "literary high treason".

That year, Becher became a founding member of the KPD-aligned Association of Proletarian-Revolutionary Authors (Bund proletarisch-revolutionärer Schriftsteller), serving as its first chairman[8] and co-editor of its magazine, Die Linkskurve.

After the Reichstag fire, Becher was placed on the Nazi blacklist, but he escaped from a large raid in the Berlin artist colony near Breitenbachplatz in Wilmersdorf.

By 15 March 1933, he, with the support of the secretary of the Association of Proletarian-Revolutionary Authors, traveled to the home of Willy Harzheim.

He traveled on to Zürich and Paris, where he lived for a time as part of the large émigré community.

[5] It became the center of evacuation for hundreds of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians from the war zones, and the government relocated industry here to preserve some capacity from the Germans.

During his time in Tashkent, he befriended Georg Lukács, the Hungarian philosopher and literary critic, who was also evacuated there.

After the Second World War, Becher returned to Germany with a KPD team, where he settled in the Soviet zone of occupation.

He also wrote the lyrics to Hanns Eisler's melody "Auferstanden aus Ruinen," which became the national anthem of the GDR.

[5] In Leipzig in 1955, the German Institute for Literature was founded and originally named in Becher's honor.

His book Das poetische Prinzip (The Poetic Principle) wherein he calls socialism the fundamental error of his life ["Grundirrtum meines Lebens"] was only published in 1988.