The Barnes & Noble Review
In the Foreword to his penultimate novel, Nightmare in Berlin, Hans Fallada concludes, "The book remains essentially a medical report, telling the story of the apathy that descended upon a large part, and more especially the better part, of the German population in April 1945." He admits that "the author, too, is a child of his times, afflicted by that same paralysis." The dateline is "Berlin, August 1946." Six months later, Fallada died of heart failure. Addicted to morphine and mentally broken, he had, astonishingly, completed the two works -- Nightmare in Berlin and Alone in Berlin -- that crowned his literary reputation. And now Nightmare in Berlin, first published in 1947, is available in English, in a supple and graceful translation by Allan Blunden.
A compressed epic of despair, venality, shame, and endurance, this "strong book about a weak human being," like most Fallada novels, mirrors its author's travails. "For twelve years he had been bullied and persecuted by the Nazis," Fallada writes of his protagonist, Dr. Doll, "they had interrogated him, arrested him, banned his books some of the time, allowed them at others, spied on his family life." And Nazi defeat brings only a different despair. So it was for Rudolf Ditzen. Born in 1893, he assumed the pen name Hans Fallada in 1920, when Young Goedeschal was published, a novel of psychosexual turmoil, clearly inspired by real events. (In high Romantic German fashion, Fallada, at eighteen, had fought a mock duel with a fellow student -- in fact, a suicide pact -- in which he accidentally killed his friend and then tried to kill himself.)
Fallada's youthful tragedy brought the first of many confinements. Imprisoned more than once for embezzlement; denounced and briefly jailed in 1933; hospitalized repeatedly for mental breakdowns, for alcohol and drug addiction, he nonetheless continued to write. Success arrived with the 1932 novel Little Man, What Now?, which Richard Simon, of Simon & Schuster, described in a 1933 letter to Fallada as "perilously close to a masterpiece." And for a time Fallada's novels, (the best known, perhaps, being Every Man Dies Alone), were as popular internationally as those of Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. Decades later, it is easy to see why. Fallada's urgent, laconic style plunges the reader into the quotidian detail of lives deformed by the struggle to survive. Nightmare in Berlin, for example, sets us down in a tranquil, domestic landscape that is saturated with fear. "Well into the night," Fallada writes, "after a day filled with torment, they stayed sitting by the windows, peering out into the little meadow, towards the bushes and the narrow cement path, to see if any of the enemy were coming."
In April 1945, in a small town in northern Germany, Dr. Doll, his young wife, and their neighbors await the arrival of the victorious Red Army. Eager to welcome the Russians as liberators, Doll spends hours tidying his garden, "clearing the last tangles of wire and rolling them up neatly." For surely appearances will matter. But when three soldiers enter the house and Doll salutes them with a clenched fist and "Tovarich" on his lips, he is regarded blankly, as a thing. "All his cherished hopes for the post-war future lay in ruins, crushed under the withering gaze," he admits. "He was a German, and so belonged to the most hated and despised nation on earth." Soon the Nuremberg war crime trials will dispel any remaining illusions. "Had I known then what I know today about all these horrors," Doll confesses, "I probably still wouldn't have done anything -- beyond feeling this powerless hatred."
The novel is driven by these surges of emotion, but Fallada keeps our gaze on everyday details, on petty betrayals and intimate crimes. There's "the mail clerk who had been a sergeant in the local Volkssturm . . . the landlord of the station bar, a bully, and, as it now turned out, another Nazi spy." Hoping to reclaim their city apartment, the Dolls leave for Berlin on a freezing, overcrowded train that reeks of desperation. "We're probably going to die soon anyway," Doll consoles his wife, "but you can do it more discreetly and comfortably in the big city. They have gas, for one thing!" Fallada's corrosive wit -- used sparingly in this novel and to devastating effect -- is oddly affecting. It draws us closer to these characters even as they surrender to the oblivion of morphine or to the macabre regimen of the sanatorium. "He loved the place," Fallada writes of Doll in the asylum, "this corridor with its rust-red linoleum, onto which so many white doors opened, but all without door handles." (Outside lies Berlin, "a nocturnal stone jungle . . . a dark sea of ruins" from which Doll eventually sees courageous survivors emerging. "Life goes on, always," he concludes. But Fallada's tightly constructed novel -- a snug nesting doll of horror within horror -- makes even that bland assertion seem foolish.
Anna Mundow, a longtime contributor to The Irish Times and The Boston Globe, has written for The Guardian, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, among other publications.
Reviewer: Anna Mundow
From the Publisher
Here was a writer whose courage was to stay behind and turn his suffering and the suffering of others into extraordinary literature.” —Financial Times
“Fallada describes Berlin as an almost post-apocalyptic city dominated by death, drugs, apathy, and the almost blackly comic pettiness of the human survival instinct. This translation of this compelling novel enables a new audience to experience Fallada’s fascinating and conflicted perspective.” —Booklist
“Has something of the horror of Conrad, the madness of Dostoyevsky, and the chilling menace of Capote.” —The New York Times on Every Man Dies Alone
“A densely packed chronicle that is of both literary and historical value…That this is furthermore a gripping and brilliantly written work goes without saying.” —Berliner Zeitung
“In this splendid novel, Fallada portrays the despondency and apathy of the German people in this strange period. The last months of the war are described with masterly skill, as well as the subsequent capitulation, the arrival of the Russian troops, the way in which the middle class, the “bourgeoisie” must adapt to this new environment, and the moral decline of the population.” —Zwiebelfisch
“It’s easy to see why Graham Greene—no small master of moral thrillers himself—so admired this writer.” PICK OF THE WEEK —Cameron Woodhead, Sydney Morning Herald
“Nightmare in Berlin is the symbol for everything that happened after the end of the war.” —Der Tagesspiegel
“Nightmare in Berlin represents a crucial moment in Fallada’s realisation that it is not the ruins, but human lives that count.” —Norddeutsche Zeitung
“A strikingly honest book, a piece of human history.” —Frankfurter Neue Presse
“One reads the story of Dr Doll, who is crushed by a nightmarish existence in a city of ruins, with intense sympathy.” —Freiheit Düsseldorf
“The book that cleared the way for Alone in Berlin.” —Jenny Williams, author of More Lives Than One: a biography of Hans Fallada
“A vital, painful examination of a devastated, morally bereft city.” —The Listener
“I was very struck by the immediacy of Fallada’s writing in this book—it feels fresh, modern and direct…[his] ability to find glimpses of light amidst the darkness makes him a striking chronicler of his time.” —Mariella Frostrup, BBC Radio 4 ‘Open Book’
“[Fallada’s] account of the agonized internal conflict of a writer, torn between the self-protective instinct to detach himself from the horror that surrounds him and the imperative to bear witness to it, has the appalled urgency of confession with little hope of absolution. Rawer and more unevenly wrought than Alone in Berlin, Nightmare in Berlin is the necessary precursor to that great work.” —New Statesman
“A tale of survival in [post-war Berlin]’s ruins.” —The Sunday Times
“[Fallada] digs deep into the human psyche to explore guilt—both collective and individual—and the battle to stay sane while surrounded by chaos…[His] character studies and local colour—whether of gritty cityscape or lurid dreamscape—prove consistently captivating…A mesmerising portrait of shattered lives.” —The National
“Painful and poignant.” —Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail
“This is a tense, atmospheric, almost dreamlike novel, shifting between moods of despair and hope. It is rich in internal stories…bold, strident, ironic and often ambivalent fiction.” —Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times
“[Nightmare in Berlin] begins in gripping style and is fascinating on the mentality of a population brought to its knees.” —Anthony Gardner, The Mail on Sunday
“[Nightmare in Berlin] evokes the apathy and despair of postwar Germany with chilling resonance and the author’s trademark humanity.” —Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times
“Records in powerful detail the reality of life for Germans living in a defeated and occupied country.” —The Mail on Sunday
“A compressed epic of despair, venality, shame, and endurance, this “strong book about a weak human being”, like most Fallada novels, mirrors its author’s travails…The novel is driven by these surges of emotion, but Fallada keeps our gaze on everyday details, on petty betrayals and intimate crimes…Fallada’s corrosive wit—used sparingly in this novel and to devastating effect—is oddly affecting. It draws us closer to these characters even as they surrender to the oblivion of morphine or to the macabre regimen of the sanatorium…“Life goes on, always”, he concludes. But Fallada’s tightly constructed novel—a snug nesting doll of horror within horror—makes even that bland assertion seem foolish.” —Anna Mundow, The Barnes & Noble Review
Norddeutsche Zeitung
“Nightmare in Berlin represents a crucial moment in Fallada’s realisation that it is not the ruins, but human lives that count.”
BBC Radio 4 ‘Open Book’ - Mariella Frostrup
“I was very struck by the immediacy of Fallada’s writing in this book—it feels fresh, modern and direct…[his] ability to find glimpses of light amidst the darkness makes him a striking chronicler of his time.”
Berliner Zeitung
“A densely packed chronicle that is of both literary and historical value…That this is furthermore a gripping and brilliantly written work goes without saying.”
Booklist
“Fallada describes Berlin as an almost post-apocalyptic city dominated by death, drugs, apathy, and the almost blackly comic pettiness of the human survival instinct. This translation of this compelling novel enables a new audience to experience Fallada’s fascinating and conflicted perspective.”
New Statesman
“[Fallada’s] account of the agonized internal conflict of a writer, torn between the self-protective instinct to detach himself from the horror that surrounds him and the imperative to bear witness to it, has the appalled urgency of confession with little hope of absolution. Rawer and more unevenly wrought than Alone in Berlin, Nightmare in Berlin is the necessary precursor to that great work.”
The Mail on Sunday - Anthony Gardner
“[Nightmare in Berlin] begins in gripping style and is fascinating on the mentality of a population brought to its knees.”
The New York Times on Every Man Dies Alone
“Has something of the horror of Conrad, the madness of Dostoyevsky, and the chilling menace of Capote.”
The Barnes & Noble Review - Anna Mundow
“A compressed epic of despair, venality, shame, and endurance, this “strong book about a weak human being”, like most Fallada novels, mirrors its author’s travails…The novel is driven by these surges of emotion, but Fallada keeps our gaze on everyday details, on petty betrayals and intimate crimes…Fallada’s corrosive wit—used sparingly in this novel and to devastating effect—is oddly affecting. It draws us closer to these characters even as they surrender to the oblivion of morphine or to the macabre regimen of the sanatorium…“Life goes on, always”, he concludes. But Fallada’s tightly constructed novel—a snug nesting doll of horror within horror—makes even that bland assertion seem foolish.”
The Sunday Times
“A tale of survival in [post-war Berlin]’s ruins.”
Sydney Morning Herald - Cameron Woodhead
“It’s easy to see why Graham Greene—no small master of moral thrillers himself—so admired this writer.” PICK OF THE WEEK
The National
“[Fallada] digs deep into the human psyche to explore guilt—both collective and individual—and the battle to stay sane while surrounded by chaos…[His] character studies and local colour—whether of gritty cityscape or lurid dreamscape—prove consistently captivating…A mesmerising portrait of shattered lives.”
Zwiebelfisch
“In this splendid novel, Fallada portrays the despondency and apathy of the German people in this strange period. The last months of the war are described with masterly skill, as well as the subsequent capitulation, the arrival of the Russian troops, the way in which the middle class, the “bourgeoisie” must adapt to this new environment, and the moral decline of the population.”
Jenny Williams
“The book that cleared the way for Alone in Berlin.”
Daily Mail - Elizabeth Buchan
“Painful and poignant.”
Financial Times
“Here was a writer whose courage was to stay behind and turn his suffering and the suffering of others into extraordinary literature.”
Der Tagesspiegel
“Nightmare in Berlin is the symbol for everything that happened after the end of the war.”
Frankfurter Neue Presse
“A strikingly honest book, a piece of human history.”
The Mail on Sunday
“Records in powerful detail the reality of life for Germans living in a defeated and occupied country.”
The Irish Times - Eileen Battersby
“[Nightmare in Berlin] evokes the apathy and despair of postwar Germany with chilling resonance and the author’s trademark humanity.”
The Listener
“A vital, painful examination of a devastated, morally bereft city.”
The New York Times
‘Has something of the horror of Conrad, the madness of Dostoyersky, and the chilling menace of Capote.’
