The whole caboodle or literally “china shop” with a roof spanning two continents mentioned by Erwin Piscator in this letter to the writer Bertolt Brecht is his life after the end of the Second World War. Piscator compares the challenge of coming through a return to Germany with crossing the ocean, a task that not even well-versed long-distance swimmers can manage.

At the time that Brecht received this letter from Piscator, he had already taken the first steps towards returning to Germany. In November 1947 he went from the USA to Switzerland to observe the developments in East Germany and to prepare for a possible return. He had spent his years in exile with his “face turned towards Germany” waiting for the downfall of the Nazis and until a time came when he could contribute to the political reconstruction of Germany. At the end of the war, he travelled to Germany to negotiate with publishers and theatres and began to prepare cautiously for his repatriation. It would appear that he suggested a similar procedure to Piscator, who wrote a letter in which he described visiting Brecht in Switzerland as “very promising” and “wonderful”.

Differing political views resulted in different decisions on a return to Germany.  Piscator, who had lived in the Soviet Union between 1931 and 1936 and whose disenchantment with Stalinism meant that he had no interest in implementing a communist state in Germany, moved to West Berlin in 1951. Brecht founded the Berliner Ensemble in East Berlin in 1949.