Background
Bunge, the son of a doctor was the oldest of four brothers.
Bunge, the son of a doctor was the oldest of four brothers.
From 1950 to 1953 he studied German Literature, Aesthetics and Theatre History in Greifswald.
He enrolled in the Hitlerjugend in 1934 at the age of fourteen. He was involved in the invasions of Poland, France and the Soviet Union. He served until 1943 when he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union.
He returned to Germany after six years in various prison camps.
Through the mediation of Ruth Berlau (who first introduced Bunge to Brecht) he was appointed assistant director and assistant dramaturg at the Berliner Ensemble. After personal differences with Helene Weigel, Bunge joined the German Academy of Arts where he oversaw the first historical-critical edition of Brecht’s works, and later published special editions of the literary journal, Sinn und Form, dedicated to Hanns Eisler, Thomas Mann, Willi Bredel and others
Bunge worked as a director and dramaturg at the Volkstheater Rostock, 1968–1970, and at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, 1970-1978. 1968 In Rostock, he tried to bring Hanns Eisler"s opera libretto on stage as a theater performance, which was prohibited by the authorities.
He subsequently worked as a freelance writer in Berlin.
In 1976 he was one of the signatories of a letter protesting against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann.
On 7 January 1966, the politically unconventional Bunge, who was friends with Wolf Biermann, Heiner Muller and Robert Havermann, was dismissed from the Academy as a result of the 11th Plenum of the Central Committee of the SED (Socialist Unity Party).
He became a member of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1938 when he was nineteen and enlisted in the Wehrmacht a year later, fighting in the Second World War.