Hans Fallada Biography and List of Works

German writer, representative of 'Neue Sachlichkeit', who took his pen name Fallada from the magical talking horse in the Grimm fairytale 'The Goose Girl'. Among Fallada's best-known works is Little Man, What Now? (1933). It depicted the survival struggle and problems of a young couple, Johannes and Lämmchen, in Germany in the grip of unemployment. During World War II he did not openly criticize the government, but published in 1947 a pitiless story, JEDER STIRBT FÜR SICH ALLEIN, about the police state which had silenced him.

  "... Alles ist Gott, Sie verstehen? Ihre Seele, Ihre unsterbliche Seele wird in die grosse Weltenseele heimkehren, Quangel!"
   "Alles ist Gott?" fragt Quangel. Er ist jetzt mit Anziehen ferting geworden und steht vor der Pritsche. "Ist Hitler auch Gott? Das Morden draussen Gott? Sie Gott? Ich Gott?"
(from Jeder stirbt für sich allein)

Hans Fallada was born in Greifswald, the son of a jurist who would later become a supreme court judge. He spent the first 18 years of his life in Berlin and Leipzig. Fallada studied geography, but after causing death of his friend in a duel and trying to shoot himself, he was confined to an asylum. His attempt to enlist the army in 1914 was rejected.

In his childhood Fallada had found the fantasy world of books. Encouraged by his aunt Adelaide, who had known Nietzsche, Fallada went to Berlin, where he was introduced to expressionist circles. He worked in odd jobs, as a clerk, a bookkeeper, an estate agent, a dealer in provisions, a potato grower. Between the years 1920 and 1922 Fallada wrote his first novels, starting with autobiographical DER JUNGE GOEDESCHAL (1920).

After his second novel, ANTON AND GERDA (1922), Fallada was silent for many years. He became addicted to morphine, and was unable to write. Continuing his self-destructive way of life, Fallada was imprisoned twice for embezzlement trying to finance his drug use. Fallada also spent times in clinics.

In the late 1920s Fallada's life took a new turn. He married Anna Issel, a working class woman, who helped him with his writing. He moved to Holstein where he worked for Neumünster Advertiser, rising to the rank of an editor. Fallada, who supported socialists, had there a close observation place in the conflict between the socialist administration and the farmers. After moving back in Berlin, where he worked as a journalist, Fallada published BAUERN, BONZEN UND BOMBEN (1931). It was followed by KLEINER MAN - WAS NUN? (1932), which gained international success. It was praised by Thomas Mann, Hermann Hess, Carl Zuckmayer and Graham Greene, and eventually filmed twice.

The realistic style of Neue Sachlichkeit (new factualism) was born partly as a reaction against expressionism in the 1920s. Partly it acknowledged the effects of technological advances on attitudes. Among the most prominent representatives of the movement were Hans Fallada, Erich Kästner, and Erich Maria Remarque. Cynicism and disillusionment marked novels which depicted the tribulations of the working class and petty bourgeois figures in the economic and politic crisis in the Weimar Republic.

Almost all Fallada's novels written in the 1930s were translated into English. He was blacklisted by the Nazis in 1935. He started to drink again, had an affair with a woman, whom he later married and who also suffered from morphine addiction and alcoholism. After a shooting incident when visiting Anna Issel - they divorced by mutual agreement - Fallada was incarcerated in an asylum, and spent there four months. During this time Fallada started to write DER TRINKER, which tells about his alcoholism and was published in 1950.

Fallada's second marriage lasted until his death. During World War II he was appointed mayor of Feldburg, when the Red Army had occupied the town, and when he resigned he was taken up by the literary establishment of the German Democratic Republic. His last works include DER ALPDRUCK (1947), a story about post-war guilt, and Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every man dies for himself), a story of a working-class couple in their tragic fight against Gestapo. Fallada died of an overdose of morphine on February 5, 1947 in Berlin.

Der Trinker (1950) - A novel written in the form of a diary. Erwin Sommer, a shop owner, starts to drink when his business is going down. His wife Martha, who had run the shop better, has devoted herself to take care of their home. Erwin has an affair with another woman. He meets Lobedanz, who is an alcoholic and drinks with him Martha's money and tries to steal her silwerware. He is later taken into an institution. Martha wants a divorce. In hospital Erwin infects himself with tuberculosis, hoping to die and to get drunk for the last time.

For further reading: World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by Martin Seymor-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); Hans Fallada: Humanist and Social Critic by H.J. Schueler (1970); Hans Fallada by L. Frank (1966) - Other writers who gained fame in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s: Bertold Brecht, Erich Kästner, Joachim Ringelnatz, Carl Zuckmayer, Alfred Döblin, Ernst Glaeser, Hermann Kesten, Erich Maria Remarque, Leonhard Frank, Arnold Zweig, Ernst Wiechert

DER JUNGE GOEDESCHALL, (1920)