Primo Levi called it ‘the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis.’ Every Man Dies Alone, based on an actual Gestapo file, was composed in 24 days by Hans Fallada shortly before his death in 1947. In addition to its literary merit, the book offers insight into the life of a bestselling German author who refused to leave Nazi Germany. What sort of literary mind would choose, or be able, to live under the Third Reich?
As a drug addict, a convicted thief (Fallada stole to feed his habit), a mental patient, and an intellectual whose work had been turned into a film by American Jews, Fallada was the embodiment of everything the Nazis loathed. Furthermore, he never joined the Nazi Party. All of this was sufficient to land him on the ‘undesirable authors’ list by 1935. Then Goebbels developed a frightening fondness for one of Fallada’s novels.
From then on, Fallada made serious concessions to the Nazis in order to stay alive. He wrote an anti-Communist children’s story and, under direct instruction from Goebbels, revised a novel to include a sympathetic storm trooper. Yet the critique of the Nazis in Every Man is explosively sincere, and near the end of the war Fallada risked his life to write what he chose. Like his Every Man hero Otto Quangel, Fallada seems to have been that unsung figure: the one who has resistance thrust upon him.
Otto Quangel is a middle-aged factory foreman who voted for Hitler. He has since become wary of the Nazis, but is content to keep his head down. He and his wife then receive news of the death of their only son at the front. The dams within burst and the couple is soon engaged in a ‘sacred’ protest, distributing anti-Nazi postcards throughout the city. They are caught and executed.
The richness of Fallada’s novel is largely due to the transformation in the character of Quangel. Housed with strangers in a notorious prison, he changes from an inexpressive, stubborn, and solitary man, to one capable of exhibiting kindness and feeling connected to all beings. He dies alone, but – knowing that he ‘kept clean’ – fully reconciled to his fate.
As stubborn and solitary as his creation, Fallada’s own breaking point seems to have come with Goebbels’ demand that he write an anti-Semitic novel. Incarcerated in 1944 in a Nazi psychiatric facility, he pretended to comply in order to secure writing materials. Then, in nearly undecipherable code, he proceeded to write The Drinker and other ‘undesirable’ works, never penning a line of the requested novel. Like Quangel, he found his greatest freedom within the walls of a prison.
After the war, Fallada’s work slipped into obscurity. It has been suggested that this was due to lingering doubts about his refusal to leave Nazi Germany. But perhaps this refusal, and the way he survived, was Fallada’s own brand of resistance. It is to him that we owe an unparalleled portrait of what it was like to resist the Nazis from within – not as a hero, but as an ordinary man.
Confucius said about Aparna: She strives to lessen her errors, but encounters many grave difficulties. She also blogs for the Gazette.
