Hans Fallada "Every Man Dies Alone"

• 1947
• Aufbau-Verlag

At the suggestion of Johannes R. Becher, and on the basis of Gestapo files provided by Becher, Fallada wrote the novel “Every Man Dies Alone” in 1946 in only 24 days. The novel deals with the opposition of a working couple in Berlin to the National Socialists. With this novel – that appeared posthumously in 1947 – the author achieved, in his own opinion, the first true Fallada since “Wolf among Wolves” after many years of internal emigration.

On 27^th October 1946 he wrote to his divorced wife Anna: “[…] rescued once again, another book in the bag. And whereas I see many children only through unfavourable eyes, namely those from the last Nazi period, as either partly successful or completely unsuccessful, I now feel with this novel, which I did not actually want to write, that I have succeeded. Finally I have done something right again. I am happy.”