Wie funktioniert die Augsburger Puppenkiste?

What does “die Fäden in der Hand halten” mean in German?

Die Fäden in der Hand halten is what you say about the person who secretly steers a situation, the way a puppeteer steers a marionette. Faden is “thread” or “string,” so the picture is literal. Germans use it for bosses, negotiators, or anyone running things from behind the scenes. A close variant is die Fäden ziehen, “to pull the strings.”

The Augsburger Puppenkiste, a marionette theatre in Augsburg known across Germany, shows where the image comes from. The puppeteers work from a high gantry with their backs to the audience, holding long threads that run to a Spielkreuz (the control cross), and every head turn or arm swing comes from a finger on a thread. Related phrases: am seidenen Faden hängen (“to hang by a thread”) and den roten Faden verlieren (“to lose the thread” of a story).