Every Man Dies Alone (Fallada)

Every Man Dies Alone
Hans Fallada, 1947 (Germany); 2009 (US)
Melville House Publishing
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781935554271

Summary
This never-before-translated masterpiece—by a heroic best-selling writer who saw his life crumble when he wouldn’t join the Nazi Party—is based on a true story.

It presents a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis and tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple who decides to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front. With nothing but their grief and each other against the awesome power of the Reich, they launch a simple, clandestine resistance campaign that soon has an enraged Gestapo on their trail, and a world of terrified neighbors and cynical snitches ready to turn them in.

In the end, it’s more than an edge-of-your-seat thriller, more than a moving romance, even more than literature of the highest order—it’s a deeply stirring story of two people standing up for what’s right, and for each other. (From the publisher.)



Author Bio
Birth—July 21, 1893
Where—Greifswald, Germany
Died—February 5, 1947
Where—Berlin, Germany


 Hans Fallada, born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen in Greifswald, Germany, was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include Little Man, What Now? (1932) and Every Man Dies Alone (1947). His works belong predominantly to the New Objectivity literary style, with precise details and journalistic veneration of the facts. Fallada's pseudonym derives from a combination of characters found in the Grimm's Fairy Tales: the protagonist of "Hans in Luck" and a horse named Falada in "The Goose Girl."

Early years
Hans Fallada was the child of a magistrate on his way to becoming a supreme court judge and a mother from a middle-class background, both of whom shared an enthusiasm for music, and to a lesser extent, literature. Jenny Williams notes in her biography More Lives than One (1998), that Fallada's father would often read aloud to his children works by authors such as Shakespeare and Schiller.

In 1899, when Fallada was 6, his father relocated the family to Berlin following the first of several promotions he would receive. Fallada had a very difficult time upon first entering school in 1901. As a result, he immersed himself in books, eschewing literature more in line with his age for authors such as Flaubert, Dostoevsky, and Dickens. In 1909 the family again relocated, to Leipzig, following his father's appointment to the Imperial Supreme Court.

A severe road accident in 1909 (age 16)—he was run over by a horse-drawn cart, then kicked in the face by the horse—and the contraction of typhoid in 1910 (age 17) seem to mark a turning point in Fallada's life and the end of his relatively care-free youth. His adolescent years were characterized by increasing isolation and self-doubt, compounded by the lingering effects of these ailments. In addition, his life-long drug problems were born of the pain-killing medications he was taking as the result of his injuries.

These issues manifested themselves in multiple suicide attempts. In 1911 he made a pact with his close friend, Hanns Dietrich, to stage a duel to mask their suicides, feeling that the duel would be seen as more honorable. Because of both boys' inexperience with weapons, it was a bungled affair. Dietrich missed Fallada, but Fallada did not miss Dietrich, killing him. Fallada was so distraught that he picked up Dietrich's gun and shot himself in the chest, but somehow survived. Nonetheless, the death of his friend ensured his status as an outcast from society. Although he was found innocent of murder by way of insanity, from this point on he would serve multiple stints in mental institutions. At one of these institutions, he was assigned to work in a farmyard, thus beginning his lifelong affinity for farm culture.

Writing career and encounters with Nazism
While in a sanatorium Fallada took to translation and poetry, albeit unsuccessfully, before finally breaking ground as a novelist in 1920 with the publication of his first book Young Goedeschal. During this period he also struggled with morphine addiction, and the death of his younger brother in the First World War.

In the wake of the war, Fallada worked at several farmhand and other agricultural jobs in order to support himself and finance his growing drug addiction. While before the war Fallada relied on his father for financial support while writing, after the German defeat he was no longer able, or willing, to depend on his father's assistance.

Shortly after the publication of Anton und Gerda, Fallada reported to prison in Greifswald to serve a 6-month sentence for stealing grain from his employer and selling it to support his drug habit. Less than 3 years later, in 1926, Fallada again found himself imprisoned as a result of a drug and alcohol-fueled string of thefts from employers. In February 1928 he finally emerged free of addiction.

Fallada married Suse Issel in 1929 and maintained a string of respectable jobs in journalism, working for newspapers and eventually for the publisher of his novels, Rowohlt. It is around this time that his novels became noticeably political and started to comment on the social and economic woes of Germany. Williams notes that Fallada's 1930/31 novel Peasants, Bosses and Bombs "..established [him] as a promising literary talent as well as an author not afraid to tackle controversial issues" Martin Seymour-Smith said it is one of his best novels, "it remains one of the most vivid and sympathetic accounts of a local revolt ever written."

The great success of Little Man, What Now in 1932, while immediately easing his financial straits, was overshadowed by his anxiety over the rise of Nazism and a subsequent nervous breakdown. Although none of his work was deemed subversive enough to warrant action by the Nazis, many of his peers were arrested and interned, and his future as an author under the Nazi regime looked bleak.

These anxieties were compounded by the loss of a baby only a few hours after childbirth. However he was heartened by the great success of Little Man, What Now? in Great Britain and the United States, where the book was a bestseller. In the U.S., it was selected by the Book of the Month Club, and was even made into a Hollywood movie, Little Man, What Now? (1934).

Because the film was made by Jewish producers, however, it earned Fallada closer attention by the rising Nazi Party. Meanwhile, as the careers, and in some cases the lives, of many of Fallada's contemporaries were rapidly drawing to a halt, he began to draw some additional scrutiny from the government in the form of denunciations of his work by Nazi authors and publications, who also noted that he had not joined the Party. On Easter Sunday, 1933, he was jailed by the Gestapo for "anti-Nazi activities" after one such denunciation, but despite a ransacking of his home no evidence was found and he was released a week later.

Although his 1934 novel, Once We Had a Child met with initially positive reviews, the official Nazi publication Völkischer Beobachter disapproved. In the same year, the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda "recommended the removal of Little Man, What Now? from all public libraries." Meanwhile, the official campaign against Fallada was beginning to take a toll on the sales of his books, landing him into financial straits that precipitated another nervous breakdown in 1934.

In September 1935 Fallada was officially declared an "undesirable author," a designation that banned his work from being translated and published abroad. Although this order was repealed a few months later, it was at this point that his writing shifted from an artistic endeavor to merely a much needed source of income, writing "children's stories and harmless fairy tales" that would also conveniently avoid the unwanted attention of the Nazis. During this time the prospect of emigration held a constant place in Fallada's mind, although he was reluctant because of his love of Germany.

In 1937 the publication and success of Wolf Among Wolves marked Fallada's temporary return to his serious, realistic style. The Nazis read the book as a sharp criticism of the Weimar Republic, and thus naturally approved. Notably, Joseph Goebbels called it "a super book." Goebbels's interest in Fallada's work would lead the writer to a world of worry: he would subsequently suggest the writer compose an anti-Semitic tract, and his praise indirectly resulted in Fallada's commission to write a novel that would be the basis for a state-sponsored film charting the life of a German family up to 1933.

The book, Iron Gustav, was a look at the deprivations and hardships brought on by World War I, but upon reviewing the manuscript Goebbels would suggest that Fallada stretch the time-line of the story to include the rise of the Nazis and their depiction as solving the problems of the War and Weimar. Fallada wrote several different versions before eventually capitulating under the pressure of both Goebbels and his depleted finances.

Other evidence of his surrender to Nazi intimidation came in the form of forewords he subsequently wrote for two of his more politically ambiguous works, brief passages in which he essentially declared that the events in his books took place before the rise of the Nazis and were clearly "designed to placate the Nazi authorities."

By the end of 1938, despite the deaths of several colleagues at the hands of the Nazis, Fallada reversed his decision to finally emigrate. His British publisher, George Putnam, had made arrangements and sent a private boat to whisk Fallada and his family out of Germany. According to Jenny Williams, Fallada had actually packed his bags and loaded them into the car when he told his wife he wanted to take one more walk around their smallholding. "When he returned some time later," Williams writes, "he declared that he could not leave Germany and that Suse should unpack."

This seemingly abrupt change of plans coincided with an inner conviction that Fallada had long harbored. Years earlier he had confided to an acquaintance that “I could never write in another language, nor live in any other place than Germany.”

World War II
Fallada once again dedicated himself to writing children's stories and other non-political material suitable for the sensitive times. Nevertheless, with the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the subsequent outbreak of World War II, life became still more difficult for Fallada and his family. War rations were the basis for several squabbles between his family and other members of his village.

On multiple occasions neighbors reported his supposed drug addiction to authorities, threatening to reveal his history of psychological disturbances, a dangerous record indeed under the Nazi regime. The rationing of paper, which prioritized state-promoted works was also an impediment to his career. Nevertheless he continued to publish in a limited role, even enjoying a very brief window of official approval. This window closed abruptly near the end of 1943 with the loss of his 25-year publisher Rowohlt, who fled the country. It was also at this time that he turned to alcohol and extra-marital affairs to cope with, among other matters, the increasingly strained relationship with his wife.

In 1944, although their divorce was already finalized, a drunk Fallada and his wife were involved in an altercation in which a shot was fired by Fallada, according to Suse Ditzen in an interview she gave late in her life to biographer Jenny Williams. According to Suse Ditzen, she took the gun from her husband and hit him over the head with it before calling the police, who confined him to a psychiatric institution.

Throughout this period Fallada had one hope to cling to: the project he had concocted to put off Goebbels's demands that he write an anti-Semitic novel. It involved the novelization of "a famous fraud case involving two Jewish financiers in the nineteen twenties" which, because of its potential as propaganda, was supported by the government and had eased pressure on him as he worked on other, more sincere projects. Finding himself incarcerated in a Nazi insane asylum, he used this project as a pretext for obtaining paper and writing materials, saying he had an assignment to fulfill for Goebbels's office.

This successfully forestalled more harsh treatment: the insane were regularly subjected to barbarous treatment by the Nazis, including physical abuse, sterilization, and even death. But rather than writing the anti-Jewish novel, Fallada used his allotment of paper to write — in a dense, overlapping script that served to encode the text — the novel The Drinker, a deeply critical autobiographical account of life under the Nazis. It was an act easily punishable by death, but he was not caught, and was released in December 1944 as the Nazi government began to crumble.

Postwar life
Despite a seemingly successful reconciliation with his first wife, he went on to marry the young, wealthy and attractive widow Ulla Losch only a few months after his release and moved in with her in Feldberg, Mecklenburg. Shortly after, the Soviets invaded the area and began to restore order. Fallada, as a celebrity, was asked to give a speech at a ceremony to celebrate the end of the war. Following this speech, he was appointed interim mayor of Feldberg for 18 months.

The time in the mental institution had taken a toll on Fallada, and, deeply depressed by the seemingly impossible task of eradicating the vestiges of fascism that were now so deeply ingrained in society by the Nazi regime, he once again turned to morphine with his wife, and both soon ended up in hospital. He spent the brief remainder of his life in and out of hospitals and wards. Losch's addiction to morphine appears to have been even worse than Fallada's, and her constantly mounting debts were an additional source of concern.

Death
At the time of Fallada's death in February 1947, he had recently completed Every Man Dies Alone, an anti-fascist novel based on the true story of a German couple, Otto and Elise Hampel, who were executed for producing and distributing anti-fascist material in Berlin during the war. According to Jenny Williams, he wrote the book in a "white heat"—a mere 24 days. He died just weeks before its publication. Fallada was buried in Pankow, a borough of Berlin, but later moved to Carwitz where he had lived from 1933 till 1944.

After Fallada's death, because of possible neglect and continuing addiction on the part of his second wife and sole heir, many of his unpublished works were lost or sold.

Fallada remained a popular writer in Germany after his death. But, although Little Man, What Now? had been a great success in the United States and the UK, outside of Germany Fallada faded into obscurity for decades, until American publisher Melville House Publishing reissued several Fallada titles, beginning in 2009 with Little Man, What Now?, The Drinker, and Every Man Dies Alone. In 2010 the publisher released Wolf Among Wolves.

Other German writers who had quit the country when Hitler rose to power felt disgust for those such as Fallada who had remained, compromising their work under the Nazi regime. Most notable of these critics was Fallada's contemporary Thomas Mann, who had fled Nazi repression early on and lived abroad. He expressed harsh condemnation for writers like Fallada, who though opponents of Nazism made concessions which compromised their work. “It may be superstitious belief, but in my eyes, any books which could be printed at all in Germany between 1933 and 1945 are worse than worthless and not objects one wishes to touch. A stench of blood and shame attaches to them. They should all be pulped.”

The Hans Fallada Prize, a literary prize awarded by the city of Neumünster, was named after the author.  (From Wikipedia.)



Book Reviews
Rescued from the grave, from decades of forgetting, this novel…testifies to the lasting value of an intact, if battered, conscience…To read Every Man Dies Alone, Fallada's testament to the darkest years of the 20th century, is to be accompanied by a wise, somber ghost who grips your shoulder and whispers into your ear: "This is how it was. This is what happened.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review


A one-of-a-kind novel … Fallada can be seen as a hero, a writer-hero who survived just long enough to strike back at his oppressors.
Toronto Globe and Mail


One of the most extraordinarily ambitious literary resurrections in recent memory.
Los Angeles Times


The book has the suspense of a John le Carré novel, and offers a visceral, chilling portrait of the distrust that permeated everyday German life during the war. Especially interesting are the details that show how Nazi-run charities and labor organizations monitored and made public the degree to which individuals supported or eschewed their cause. The novel shows how acts that at the time might have seemed “ridiculously small”...could have profound and lasting meaning.
New Yorker


This disturbing novel, written in 24 days by a German writer who died in 1947, is inspired by the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who scattered postcards advocating civil disobedience throughout war-time Nazi-controlled Berlin. Their fictional counterparts, Otto and Anna Quangel, distribute cards during the war bearing antifascist exhortations and daydream that their work is being passed from person to person, stirring rebellion, but, in fact, almost every card is immediately turned over to authorities. Fallada aptly depicts the paralyzing fear that dominated Hitler's Germany, when decisions that previously would have seemed insignificant—whether to utter a complaint or mourn one's deceased child publicly—can lead to torture and death at the hands of the Gestapo. From the Quangels to a postal worker who quits the Nazi party when she learns that her son committed atrocities and a prison chaplain who smuggles messages to inmates, resistance is measured in subtle but dangerous individual stands. This isn't a novel about bold cells of defiant guerrillas but about a world in which heroism is defined as personal refusal to be corrupted.
Publishers Weekly


Based on the Gestapo files of a real couple, Fallada’s story is powerful and bleak, an anguished lament that resistance is necessary yet futile. Penned in just 24 days, this was Fallada’s final work before dying of a morphine overdose; it may also be his most honest memoir of his life under the Nazis. —Brendan Driscoll
Booklist


Grim, powerful epic portrait of life in Germany under Nazi rule, published shortly after the author's death in 1947 but never before available in English. Fallada was a bestselling novelist before the rise of the Third Reich, but during World War II he was hounded by the Gestapo and psychologically brutalized by Joseph Goebbels, who unsuccessfully tried to force him to write an anti-Semitic book. Sinking into alcohol and drug addiction, he was a broken man by the end of his life, and his final novel is shot through with his despair. Written in a 24-day rush, it was inspired by the real-life case of a working-class husband and wife who conducted a covert three-year propaganda campaign against the Nazi regime. Fallada's fictionalized version centers on Otto and Anna Quangel, who are driven to protest after learning that their only son has died fighting at the front. The protest is small and timid: Otto writes anti-Hitler messages on postcards that he distributes around Berlin, and the Quangels are never certain if they influence any hearts or minds. Nonetheless, they provoke the Gestapo. Fallada reveals a deep understanding of the agency's chain of command, its grisly abuses of power and the culture of fear it cultivated among German citizens. His hefty novel includes a host of characters, from hard-drinking reprobates and factory workers to judges and, in a poignant early passage, an elderly Jewish woman in the Quangels' apartment building who lives in a perpetual state of terror. Most of these people are archetypal to a fault: Otto Quangel rarely strays from a stance of stoic nobility, and the drunken, proud bloviations of Gestapo brass occasionally border on the absurd. The characters' fates are clearly telegraphed, yet Fallada keeps readers engaged with passionate prose that rushes events along at a thriller-like pace. And there's stark grandeur in the closing chapters, featuring a Nazi trial, an execution and death in prison. A very welcome resurrection for a great writer crucified by history.
Kirkus Reviews



Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Every Man Dies Alone:

1. Discuss the observation mentioned in the book: that "half the [German] population is set on locking up the other half." What does the comment mean? How would that fact have instilled terror among the German population?

2. What is the significance of the book's title, Every Man Dies Alone? Do you agree with the title's statement?

3. Talk about what it must have been like, as an ordinary German citizen, to live with constant fear of imprisonment, torture, and death at the hands of the Nazi's?

4. Why do those who find the postcards, even if they secretly oppose the Nazi's, turn them in? Had you found a one, what would you have done?

5. When Otto Quangel conceives of the postcard idea, he admits that as small a protest as it is, "it'll cost us our lives." Anna says, "but the main thing was, you fought back." Is their decision one of bravery, true resistance, or simply despair and nihilism as a result of the death of their son?

6. Would you have been willing or able to undertake such a dangerous—and ultimately futile—project as the Quangels? Knowing that resistance against evil is futile, is one still morally bound to resist as Anna indicates? Asking a broader question: What makes ordinary people do extraordinary things?

7. The Quangels know that not only are their own lives in jeopardy, so are the lives of friends and family. Are their actions justified knowing the danger their actions bring to others?

8. Otto begins the novel as a man who withholds friendship and connection to others, except Anna. How does he change...and what brings that change about?

9. What do you think about Escherick, the Gestapo man who works to uncover the Postcard Phantom? How does he change throughout the course of the novel? What does he come to realize about the Nazi's and his role in the hierarchy of power?

10. Does Fallada do a good job of making Nazi Germany come to life? When reading did you have the sense that you were living in the midst of Berlin in the early 1940s under Hitler?

11. Talk, one-by-one, about the supporting characters in the novel: Baldur Persickes, the Hitler Youth; the elderly Jewish women terrified of being taken; Judge Fromm, the compassionate, reluctant jurist; Eva Kluge, the postal worker—to name several. Which character do you find most sympathetic...which least?

12. There has been some criticism that characters are a somewhat black and white: Otto and Anna, noble; all Nazi's absurd. Do you agree...or does Fallada do a good job of fleshing out his characters?

13. Did you come away from this book having learned something about the Nazis that you hadn't known before? What, in particular, shocked you...or horrified you most?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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