Margarete Steffin

Margarete Emilie Charlotte Steffin (21 March 1908 – 4 June 1941) was a German actress and writer, one of Bertold Brecht's closest collaborators, as well as a prolific translator from Russian and Scandinavian languages.

Born to a proletarian family, at the age of fourteen she went to work for the phone company but her interest in Social Democratic politics got her fired.

Brecht's 1955 Collected Works names Steffin as the collaborator on Roundheads and Peakheads, Señora Carrar's Rifles and The Horatians and the Curiatians.

In addition Brecht acknowledged her role in Fear and Misery in the Third Reich, Life of Galileo and Mother Courage.

[1] She is also thought to have had a large hand in Mr Puntila and his Man Matti, The Good Person of Szechwan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.