The world premiere of Bertolt Brecht's Fear and Misery of the Third Reich in the form of a selection entitled 99% was held on 21 May 1938 in the Salle d'Iéna in Paris. A year earlier Brecht had already explored the idea of a fallen aviator brother in the Svendborg poems upon hearing about the deployment of the German Condor Legion in 1937 in Spain. In the Job Creation scene, a married couple and their neighbour discuss the fact that the wife's brother has been killed in an accident on the training area in Szczecin according to the notification. However, the neighbour thought that it was "in the south", i.e. in Spain. The woman wants to wear mourning clothes, but her husband is afraid that he could lose his job in the "Job Creation" department.

Steffie Spira and Helene Weigel had already worked together in 1928 in Brecht's comedy A man's a man in Berlin. As in 1937, Helene Weigel once again travelled from Denmark to Paris to guest with Spira's troupe Die Laterne. It was not possible for her to perform continuously in German-speaking theatre companies in the exile countries. In September 1946, she wrote from Santa Monica in California to Mexico: "Dear Steffi and Ruschin, [...], I thought I would ask if you could arrange for me come to you and give a lecture [...]" (ed. trans).