In October 1946 Brecht wrote from American exile to his oldest friend and collaborator, the designer Caspar Neher: 'It would be nice if the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, for instance, were available to us again.' The war and Hitler's reign over, Brecht had set his mind on getting a theatre of his own and finally achieving what must have been an ultimate goal that never before had seemed attainable. In a letter to Neher of December the same year, he stated: 'I'm convinced that we'll build up a theatre again.'

It took Brecht little more than two years to realise his ambition. In April 1949 the East Berlin authorities, that is, the Politburo of the Socialist Unity Party, agreed to provide the financial support for his project: a company under Brecht's artistic guidance that was to be managed by his wife Helene Weigel as 'Intendant'. She would also be the company's leading actress. His plan to take over the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm, however, had to wait until the company in residence would move into the Volksbühne theatre, still to be rebuilt from its ruins at Luxemburg Square. The Intendant of the Deutsches Theater, Wolfgang Langhoff, offered Brecht his two houses, the Deutsches and the Kammerspiele, as a provisional home where the company could perform two to three times a week.