Hans Fallada
Encyclopedia
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
(KHM 83) and a horse named Falada in The Goose Girl
.
.
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.
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 Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben ("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 Kleiner Mann - was nun? (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, Wir hatten mal ein Kind (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 unter Wölfen (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, Der eiserne Gustav (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.”
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. (The police record of the call to the altercation makes no mention of shots being fired.) 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 Der Trinker (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.
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.
), 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. Melville House licensed its edition and translation of Every Man Dies Alone to Penguin Classics in the UK, which published his last book as Alone in Berlin. In 2010, Melville House released Wolf Among Wolves in its first unexpurgated English translation.
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.
has painted a picture "The Drinker" influenced by Fallada's novel of the same title. Childish has cited Fallada as a major influence on his own prose work, notably in the novel Sex Crimes of the Futcher [sic].
Note: Translations made by E. Sutton and P. Owens in the 1930s and 40s were abbreviated and/or made from unreliable editions, according to Fallada biographer Jenny Williams.
German:
Greifswald
Greifswald , officially, the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald is a town in northeastern Germany. It is situated in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at an equal distance of about from Germany's two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg. The town borders the Baltic Sea, and is crossed...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
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
Every Man Dies Alone
Every Man Dies Alone or Alone in Berlin is a 1947 novel by German author Hans Fallada. It is based on the true story of a working class husband and wife, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience in Berlin during World War II before being caught, tried by infamous Nazi judge...
(1947). His works belong predominantly to the New Objectivity
New Objectivity
The New Objectivity is a term used to characterize the attitude of public life in Weimar Germany as well as the art, literature, music, and architecture created to adapt to it...
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
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales .-Composition:...
: the protagonist of Hans in Luck
Hans in Luck
Hans in Luck is a fairy tale of Germanic origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm. It is Aarne-Thompson type 1415.-Plot summary:Hans worked hard for seven years but wishes to return to see his poor mother. His master pays him his wages which amounts to a lump of gold the size of his head. Hans puts...
(KHM 83) and a horse named Falada in The Goose Girl
The Goose Girl
The Goose Girl is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm. Since the second edition published in 1819, The Goose Girl has been recorded as Tale no. 89....
.
Early life
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 SchillerFriedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
.
In 1899, when Fallada was 6, his father relocated the family to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
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
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, following his father's appointment to the Imperial Supreme Court
Reichsgericht
The Reichsgericht was the highest court of the Deutsches Reich. It was established on October 1, 1879 when the Reichsjustizgesetze came into effect, building a widely regarded body of jurisprudence....
.
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
Duel
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with agreed-upon rules.Duels in this form were chiefly practised in Early Modern Europe, with precedents in the medieval code of chivalry, and continued into the modern period especially among...
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 Der junge Goedeschal ("Young Goedeschal"). During this period he also struggled with morphineMorphine
Morphine is a potent opiate analgesic medication and is considered to be the prototypical opioid. It was first isolated in 1804 by Friedrich Sertürner, first distributed by same in 1817, and first commercially sold by Merck in 1827, which at the time was a single small chemists' shop. It was more...
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
Greifswald
Greifswald , officially, the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald is a town in northeastern Germany. It is situated in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at an equal distance of about from Germany's two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg. The town borders the Baltic Sea, and is crossed...
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
Rowohlt
Rowohlt Verlag is a publishing house based in Reinbek and also Hamburg and Berlin, part of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Group . The company was created in 1908 in Leipzig by Ernst Rowohlt.- Parts of the company :* Kindler Verlag...
. 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 Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben ("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
Martin Seymour-Smith
Martin Roger Seymour-Smith was a British poet, literary critic, biographer and astrologer.Seymour-Smith was born in London and educated at Oxford University where he was editor of Isis...
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 Kleiner Mann - was nun? (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
Book of the Month Club
The Book of the Month Club is a United States mail-order book sales club that offers a new book each month to customers.The Book of the Month Club is part of a larger company that runs many book clubs in the United States and Canada. It was formerly the flagship club of Book-of-the-Month Club, Inc...
, and was even made into a Hollywood movie, Little Man, What Now?
Little Man, What Now? (film)
Little Man, What Now? is a 1934 drama film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Margaret Sullavan. It is based on the novel of the same name.-Cast:* Margaret Sullavan - Emma 'Lammchen' Pinneberg* Douglass Montgomery - Hans Pinneberg...
(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
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
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, Wir hatten mal ein Kind (Once We Had a Child) met with initially positive reviews, the official Nazi publication Völkischer Beobachter
Völkischer Beobachter
The Völkischer Beobachter was the newspaper of the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1920. It first appeared weekly, then daily from February 8, 1923...
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 unter Wölfen (Wolf Among Wolves
Wolf Among Wolves
Wolf Among Wolves is a novel by Hans Fallada first published in 1937 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Berlin. Its first unabridged translation into English by Philip Owens was published in 1938....
) marked Fallada's temporary return to his serious, realistic style. The Nazis read the book as a sharp criticism of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
, and thus naturally approved. Notably, Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
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, Der eiserne Gustav (Iron Gustav), was a look at the deprivations and hardships brought on by World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, 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
George Putnam
George Putnam may refer to:*George Putnam , Los Angeles, California, television newsman*George D. Putnam , screenwriter*George F. Putnam, American historian...
, 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 1939Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
and the subsequent outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, 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. (The police record of the call to the altercation makes no mention of shots being fired.) 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 Der Trinker (The Drinker
The Drinker
The Drinker is a novel by Hans Fallada, first published in 1950.Fallada began the novel , in 1944, when he was imprisoned in a criminal asylum for the attempted murder of his wife. It is autobiographical, in diary form, and tells the story of a man in the grip of both morphine and alcohol. Beryl...
), 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 and legacy
At the time of Fallada's death in February 1947, he had recently completed Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every Man Dies AloneEvery Man Dies Alone
Every Man Dies Alone or Alone in Berlin is a 1947 novel by German author Hans Fallada. It is based on the true story of a working class husband and wife, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience in Berlin during World War II before being caught, tried by infamous Nazi judge...
), an anti-fascist novel based on the true story of a German couple, Otto and Elise Hampel
Otto and Elise Hampel
Otto and Elise Hampel were a working-class couple who created a simple method of protest while living in Berlin during the early years of World War II. They composed postcards denouncing Hitler's government and left them in public places around the city. They were eventually caught, tried, and...
, 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
Pankow
Pankow is the third borough of Berlin. In Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was merged with the former boroughs of Prenzlauer Berg and Weißensee; the resulting borough retained the name Pankow.- Overview :...
, 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
Melville House Publishing
Melville House Publishing is an independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey, a location Johnson jokingly called "the Left Bank" of New York City...
reissued several Fallada titles, beginning in 2009 with Little Man, What Now?, The Drinker, and Every Man Dies Alone. Melville House licensed its edition and translation of Every Man Dies Alone to Penguin Classics in the UK, which published his last book as Alone in Berlin. In 2010, Melville House released Wolf Among Wolves in its first unexpurgated English translation.
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
Hans Fallada Prize
The Hans Fallada Prize is a German literary prize given by the city of Neumünster in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Since 1981 it has been normally awarded every two years to a young author from the German-speaking world...
, a literary prize awarded by the city of Neumünster
Neumünster
Neumünster is an independent town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, which has a total of four independent towns.-Current Situation:Neumünster station is major railway junction with lines running in six directions, including the important Hamburg-Altona–Kiel and Neumünster–Flensburg lines.Near...
, was named after the author.
Influence
The painter and writer Billy ChildishBilly Childish
Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
has painted a picture "The Drinker" influenced by Fallada's novel of the same title. Childish has cited Fallada as a major influence on his own prose work, notably in the novel Sex Crimes of the Futcher [sic].
Works
English:- Little Man, What Now? (tr. Eric Sutton, 1933; tr. Susan Bennett, 1996)
- Who Once Eats Out of the Tin Bowl (UK) / The World Outside (US) (tr. Eric Sutton, 1934)
- Once We Had a Child (tr. Eric Sutton, 1935)
- An Old Heart Goes A-Journeying (tr. Eric Sutton, 1936)
- Sparrow Farm (tr. Eric Sutton, 1937)
- Wolf Among WolvesWolf Among WolvesWolf Among Wolves is a novel by Hans Fallada first published in 1937 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Berlin. Its first unabridged translation into English by Philip Owens was published in 1938....
(tr. Phillip Owens, 1938) - Iron Gustav (tr. Phillip Owens, 1940)
- The DrinkerThe DrinkerThe Drinker is a novel by Hans Fallada, first published in 1950.Fallada began the novel , in 1944, when he was imprisoned in a criminal asylum for the attempted murder of his wife. It is autobiographical, in diary form, and tells the story of a man in the grip of both morphine and alcohol. Beryl...
(tr. Charlotte and A.L. Lloyd, 1952) - That Rascal, Fridolin (juvenile; tr. R. Michaelis-Jena and R. Ratcliff, 1959)
- Every Man Dies AloneEvery Man Dies AloneEvery Man Dies Alone or Alone in Berlin is a 1947 novel by German author Hans Fallada. It is based on the true story of a working class husband and wife, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience in Berlin during World War II before being caught, tried by infamous Nazi judge...
(US) / Alone in Berlin (UK) (tr. Michael HofmannMichael HofmannMichael Hofmann is a German-born poet who writes in English and a translator of texts from German.-Biography:...
, 2009)
Note: Translations made by E. Sutton and P. Owens in the 1930s and 40s were abbreviated and/or made from unreliable editions, according to Fallada biographer Jenny Williams.
German:
- Der junge Goedeschal, 1920
- Anton und Gerda, 1923
- Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben, 1931
- Kleiner Mann, was nun?, 1932 (English: Little Man, What Now?)
- Wer einmal aus dem Blechnapf frißt, 1932 (English: Who Once Eats Out of the Tin Bowl)
- Wir hatten mal ein Kind, 1934 (English: Once We Had a Child)
- Märchen vom Stadtschreiber, der aufs Land flog, 1935 (English: Sparrow Farm)
- Altes Herz geht auf die Reise, 1936 (English: An Old Heart Goes A-Journeying By)
- Hoppelpoppel - wo bist du?, Kindergeschichten, 1936
- Wolf unter Wölfen, 1937 (English: Wolf Among Wolves)
- Geschichten aus der Murkelei, Märchen, 1938
- Der eiserne Gustav, 1938 (English: Iron Gustav)
- Süßmilch spricht, 1938
- Kleiner Mann - großer Mann, alles vertauscht, 1939
- Süßmilch spricht. Ein Abenteuer von Murr und Maxe, Erzählung, 1939
- Der ungeliebte Mann, 1940
- Das Abenteuer des Werner Quabs, Erzählung, 1941
- Damals bei uns daheim, Erinnerungen, 1942
- Heute bei uns zu Haus, Erinnerungen, 1943
- Fridolin der freche Dachs, 1944 (English: That Rascal, Fridolin)
- Jeder stirbt für sich allein, 1947 (English: Every Man Dies Alone (US)/Alone in Berlin (UK))
- Der Alpdruck, 1947
- Der Trinker, 1950 (English: The Drinker)
- Ein Mann will nach oben, 1953
- Die Stunde, eh´du schlafen gehst, 1954
- Junger Herr - ganz groß, 1965
External links
- Hans Fallada, biography by Petri Liukkonen
- Biography, in German
- Hans Fallada, official website (German)
- Hans Fallada, unofficial English-language website