Weekend Deviation – Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin

Words do have power – and if you need reminding of that then Hans Fallada’s Alone in Berlin will jog your memory with a start. To be honest I grabbed it quickly at the airport thinking it a new book, turns out it was written in 1947. It is a story of immense power – the people of Berlin under Hitler’s tyranny at the start of the war in 1940. One couple decide to fight back and start leaving postcards denouncing Hitler and the Nazi state around the city. What follows is a police chase of the ‘traitors’ and a virtually unique retelling of life for the ordinary civilians of Berlin under the Nazi regime. Apparently it’s based on real events and is a well known book in German. As ever, don’t do book reviews here – see blurb below:

Berlin, 1940, and the city is filled with fear. At the house on 55 Jablonski Strasse, its various occupants try to live under Nazi rule in their different ways: the bullying Hitler loyalists the Persickes, the retired judge Fromm and the unassuming couple Otto and Anna Quangel. Then the Quangels receive the news that their beloved son has been killed fighting in France. Shocked out of their quiet existence, they begin a silent campaign of defiance, and a deadly game of cat and mouse develops between the Quangels and the ambitious Gestapo inspector Escherich. When petty criminals Kluge and Borkhausen also become involved, deception, betrayal and murder ensue, tightening the noose around the Quangels’ necks.

More on the book, Fallada and a podcast from Penguin here.

Reviews:

The Guardian

The Times

The Telegraph