Ernst Toller’s letter to Klaus Mann from 6 March 1938 comes from the time of his return from California to the American east coast. In Hollywood, in February 1937, Toller had signed a lucrative year-long contract as a scriptwriter with MGM Studios. From June 1937 he moved with his wife Christiane Grauthoff into a house in Santa Monica. Nonetheless, it soon became clear that he could not get along with the working practices of the film industry.

On 18 February 1938 Ernst Toller returned to New York and moved into a room in the Mayflower Hotel, which he occupied until his death, and on whose letter paper this letter was composed. Toller was at this time undergoing psychiatric treatment for his depression and his marriage was already breaking up. Klaus Mann’s words of encouragement ought to have related to Toller’s general situation. Whilst Klaus Mann was living in Switzerland at the time of the letter, Toller seems to have spent some time in New Jersey, where he wanted to visit Thomas Mann in Princeton.

Alongside his work on the play Pastor Hall, in the New Year Ernst Toller threw himself into numerous new activities. He joined the American Guild for German Cultural Freedom and, in the context of his activities as a lecturer, took up contact with Klaus Mann’s agent William B. Feakins, as is mentioned in the letter. In July, he finally travelled to the warzone in Spain, which led to the definitive collapse of his marriage.