Hans Fallads - Alone in Berlin

Review by Corinna christopher on show 4th Feb.
This is a powerful book that reads like a thriller and is set in wartime Berlin.
In an apartment building there are a disparate number of working class people who are living a miserable and frightened life in a city full of hardship and suspicion.
The plot centres around Otto and Anna Quangel whose son has just been killed at the front. Otto is a Foreman in a carpentry workshop and a man of few words who wishes to keep himself to himself. As a result of their loss they decide to take a stand against Hitler and his regime and write a series of postcards with inflammatory messages which they leave around the city. This silent campaign comes to the attention of the Gestapo and there begins a cat and mouse game with the ambitious inspector Escherich.
Other characters connected with the chase are portrayed vividly with many of them sad cases defined by their weaknesses. There emerges a distressing picture of life in wartime Berlin.
The ending of the book can be guessed and is described with harrowing details, raw, brutal and bleak. It is a very moving account and I am glad to have read it.
Hans Fallada is a pen name of a German born writer who had a troubled childhood and suffered from physical and mental problems. This book was written in just 24 days and Fallada was in hospital with addiction problems and died before it was published in 1946. The story was based on the true life of a couple pursued by the Gestapo for writing postcards denouncing the Nazi regime.
A remarkable book and mostly forgotten until recently when it was translated into French where it became a bestseller. Now they plan to make a film in English.
It is well written and a real page turner with short titled chapters to aid comprehension.
Review by Corinna