After World War II and the break-up of Germany, Piscator returned to West Germany in 1951 due to McCarthy era political pressure in the United States against former communists in the arts. In 1962 Piscator was appointed manager and director of the Freie Volksbühne in West Berlin. To much international critical acclaim, in February 1963 Piscator premièred Rolf Hochhuth's "The Deputy", a play "about Pope Pius XII and the allegedly neglected rescue of Italian Jews from Nazi gas chambers." Until his death in 1966, Piscator was a major exponent of contemporary and documentary theatre. Piscator's wife, Maria Ley, died in New York City in 1999.