Erwin Piscator had harboured the desire to put on Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace as a stage production for years. The director had become a pacifist and first engaged with the novel as a soldier in World War I. After the Nazis assumed power, he wanted to use the piece to warn against Hitler. While in exile in France in 1938, Piscator developed a stage adaptation of the novel that he hoped to put on on London's West End and Broadway. After emigrating to the US a few months before the start of World War II, his plans came to nought. Instead, in 1940 Piscator became the director of the Dramatic Workshop of the New School of Social Research. Here, in 1942, he had the opportunity to put on the piece for the first time on the studio stage of his school, albeit in more modest surroundings than he had envisioned.

In 1951 the director left the US and returned to Germany. Finding a new professional home in the Federal Republic, however, proved difficult. After nearly 20 years abroad, the theatre scene in Germany had become alien to him. His ultimate breakthrough came with War and Peace. In 1955 the piece was staged to great public acclaim in a new musical version by Boris Blacher at the Schillertheater in West Berlin. The stage version was translated into multiple languages and performed in 16 countries.