Nowadays
Hans Fallada’s novel Every Man Dies Alone (1947) , a true story of quiet
back-room rebellion of a middle – aged couple against the Nazi regime, seems to
be included more often than before in canonical lists of German literature.
It is one
of those books that was written not solely for the sake of the story but also
as an early attempt to show the World and especially the Germans themselves,
that there had been a few decent people left in Nazi – ruled Germany. While the
story is closely based on true events ( my edition includes pictures and
official documents ), a few details are too contrived to be anything else than post-war redemptive propaganda: a fellow prisoner in a Gestapo prison, one of the last
decent and kind men left, is a music conductor whistling a whole range of high
Art tunes : Beethoven, Bach and other examples of high German culture. This
symbolic feature is respected by both his fellow inmates and prison guards.
I belong to
those who in trying to understand what happened in Germany between 1933 and
1945, refuses to separate the Germans from the Nazi’s.To me, with a grandfather
executed by Wehrmacht soldiers, it was the same people. Nazism was the rule of
the Bully and a mass that let the Bully rule.
The book’s
main achievement, beside the merit of a well told story, is without doubt the recreation of the atmosphere of
oppression and fear that permeates daily life in Berlin during the darker years
of Nazi rule. Fallada narrates the story of the little people and I must
confess that the description of how the Nazi rule of law works is often
chilling and gives the reader a good idea of how daily life is lived in a
Police state, be it under the Nazi’s, Stalin’s Russia or nowadays in the Arabic
countries under the rule of an extremist Mullah.
Every Man
Dies Alone is a book well worth reading.
It is a gripping and well structured
story . At moments however it feels a bit like the narrative is stretched too
much or diverting away too far from the main story line, but at the end all the
threads come back into a single horrible knot.
With a last
page turned, you remain with a few deep questions : What for instance is the
physiology of these acts of resistance. Why do people rebel ? How much bravery
goes into it and most of all, is it
worth doing it against a much stronger opponent?
The fact
that the story is still read and praised is an answer by itself.
