****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
More than sixty years have passed since World War II ended, and to me it sometimes seems that the very over-usage of the terms 'Hitler' and 'Nazism' have facilitated the reduction of these historical phenomena to mere talismans of turpitude. In other words, as an *emblem* of wickedness, the Third Reich is ever-present in our consciousness, whilst the everyday reality of the evils it perpetrated has perhaps receded. Hans Fallada's novel, therefore, is hugely important. As a snapshot of the quotidian reality of life in Nazi Germany - particularly the regime's impact on just a handful of ordinary people - it is a gut-wrenching reminder of just how awful the Third Reich was, even within its own borders."Every Man Dies Alone" tells the tale of Otto and Anna Quangel, a middle-aged, working-class couple living in Berlin who one day learn via telegram that their only son has been killed during the invasion of France. Their searing grief is infused with a sense of rage that the Nazi regime has destroyed their lives. Yet there is nothing a mere couple can do to resist the Reich. Or is there?Otto and Anna begin to compose postcards with subversive messages which point to the mendacity of the Nazis and which call upon Germans to resist the regime. Carefully, painstakingly, they drop these cards - one at a time - in stairwells and public buildings. If they are caught, it means certain death. They are surrounded, after all, by a brutalized citizenry comprised of the venal and the weak, people ready to turn them in at any moment. Meanwhile, the Gestapo has intercepted the first of the postcards, and the hunt is on. How long can the Quangels hold out?Written in 1947 by an author who himself was oppressed by the Nazis, "Every Man Dies Alone" has - remarkably - only now been translated into English for the first time. Despite all cavils (yes, the characters are somewhat lacking in depth; yes, the prose seldom features any florid touches), this is still an awesome book. It is based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel, an uneducated couple living in Berlin who underwent a similar family tragedy and thereafter began a clandestine campaign of anti-Nazism. This edition of the novel features an appendix which reproduces both a sample of the Hampels' postcards and extracts from the Gestapo files on the couple following their arrest. This fascinating addendum helps to ground the story of their fictional analogues in a horrid reality.And that reality is well-represented in every character: the penniless and self-serving informers who are a constant danger to their fellow citizens; the terrified elderly Jewess living on the top floor of the Quangels' apartment building who can hardly do anything but await her fate; the brutal and incurably indoctrinated Hitler Youth member downstairs; the kindly and sagacious retired Judge who does what little he can to help; the imprisoned orchestra conductor whose decency simply cannot be eroded; and of course the pitiless SS staff whose most base characteristics are given free rein throughout (the interrogation scenes are far more appalling for their psychological violence than their physical brutality).Scarcely anything could prepare the reader for the scalding horrors of the book's long, drawn-out denouement. The first three parts of the novel are merely infused with tension: the fourth and final part plays out like an unending nightmare in slow motion, everything ineluctable and unbearable at once. This is truly an upsetting read, but it is all the more important to read it for that. This - after all - is a picture of what Nazi Germany must really have been like, written by an author who saw it all from the inside.As Geoff Wilkes' illuminating afterword points out, Fallada himself thought that the real-life Hampels' postcards were illiterate and ineffective, particularly compared to the more famous efforts of Hans and Sophie Scholl. (Most of the Hampels' cards, far from being circulated, were promptly handed over to the Gestapo by a citizenry terrified by merely having come in contact with them.)So the question must be asked. Was the Hampels' campaign against the Nazis a futile, wasted effort? At the risk of sounding anodyne, the answer is: not if you read this book. If the Hampels had never committed themselves to this campaign, Fallada would never have been able to novelise it, and we would never have been able to read of the awful world they inhabited. This book, therefore, is something of a cry from the grave. It is their memorial.
