Every Man Dies Alone
by Hans Fallada
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Book Summary Information
Author: Hans FalladaTranslator: Michael Hofmann
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-03-03
ISBN: 1933633638
Number of pages: 544
Publisher: Melville House
Book Reviews of Every Man Dies Alone
Book Review: "What we make of ourselves, we make not for others..."
Summary: 5 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
No reader of WWII history will be able to turn down the endorsement of survivor/historian Primo Levi: "The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis."
The reader may not want to pick up this book: for the tale to be complete, it cannot end well.
Author Hans Fallada came across a file - for Every Man Dies Alone IS based on a true story - and wrote his book in under a month. Unfortunately, he died a few weeks before its publication. For the first time (2009), it has been translated into English.
Fallada told the story of the seemingly meek story Quagnels, while also sketching details of their neighbors: the Jewish lady and the Judge who hid her for a few days; the thieves; the cowards; the victimized postmistress; the woman who lost her love. These droplets support the story because they show the ripple effects of every action.
Otto and Anna Quagnel were an older German couple whose son fought for the Reich. He died in action. The Quagnels were barely allowed a moment to grieve; after all, they should be proud that they gave their son to Germany.
Otto fumed quietly. How could he open the eyes of his neighbors to the atrocities that occurred all around them? More importantly, how could he do this without being arrested? - speaking against the Reich was a criminal, treasonous act.
Otto bought a few blank postcards, which he used as his voice - disguising his handwriting, of course - to scream against Hitler and the Gestapo. He dropped these on windowsills, on stairwells, anonymously in the surrounding towns, in office buildings. When Anna found out what he was doing, she joined him in the composition and drops.
The Quagnels had hoped that the cards would be picked up and read, that their tiny, quiet resistance would open eyes. They didn't know that most of the people who found these cards were so terrified to have the cards in their possession that they'd give them over to the closest policeman. Of 276 postcards and nine letters, over two years, all but eighteen were handed over immediately.
The postcards, however, had a surprising effect: they made the Gestapo go nuts. Not only was someone daring to speak against Hitler's Germany, but the officers couldn't find this little "hobgoblin." This ripple may have been even more important than the postcards themselves; how many people, after all, were able to rattle Hitler's police?
Every Man Dies Alone is NOT important as a beautiful work of literature. It will, however, allow the reader an opportunity to cheer on the Quagnels, to laugh at the carelessness of the common criminals living alongside them, to smile at the good-hearted people who manage to leave Hitler's Germany. For these reasons, the reader will hold an excellent book in his hands.
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