What is the social and historical context of Bertolt’s “ mother courage and her children “

Mother Courage and Her Children is set during the Thirty Years' War, but it was written either shortly before or during the early years of the Second World War. Hitler's warmongering intentions had become clear to many Germans by the mid-1930s, and Brecht himself, already opposed to the man he called "the great bandit," had repeatedly emigrated so as to escape the rise of fascism. "The dark times" was how Brecht referred to this era in his writing, and it is against the backdrop of the rise of Hitler that the play was written.

Brecht lived until April 1939 in Denmark, where in 1938 he had written Fear and Misery in the Third Reich, a series of short scenes which demonstrated without restraint the degree of horror that would ensue, so he prophesied, should the Nazis come to power. Today, they serve as a blistering warning which all too obviously fell on deaf ears. After Denmark, Brecht moved to Sweden. This is where Mother Courage and Her Children was first drafted. The decision to write the play was taken after Hitler and Stalin had signed their rather improbable pact.