About the Book:

This never-before-translated masterpiece—by a heroic best-selling writer who saw his life crumble when he wouldn’t join the Nazi Party—is based on a true story.

It presents a richly detailed portrait of life in Berlin under the Nazis and tells the sweeping saga of one working-class couple who decides to take a stand when their only son is killed at the front. With nothing but their grief and each other against the awesome power of the Reich, they launch a simple, clandestine resistance campaign that soon has an enraged Gestapo on their trail, and a world of terrified neighbors and cynical snitches ready to turn them in.

In the end, it’s more than an edge-of-your-seat thriller, more than a moving romance, even more than literature of the highest order—it’s a deeply stirring story of two people standing up for what’s right, and for each other.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

This is a book that I picked up primarily for the subject material — I have always been a sucker for World War II/Holocaust themes in both fiction and non-fiction.  This book strangely filled both categories.  The story is based on actual events, portrayed in fictional format.  But ultimately it was the author’s history that seemed to add the elements to this book that I really enjoyed.

The story itself is simply ok.  It was a little bit of struggle to get through, mainly because of the characterization and movement of the story.  There are points in this book when it just seemed to be dragging on forever.  I kept wondering when something was going to happen.  Overall, I felt like the story could have been presented in much shorter form, and the characters could certainly be much stronger over all.

However, the feel of the book is another matter altogether.  Fallada, having spent much of the World War II years in a mental institution in Nazi Germany, survived against all the odds.  And I believe this is the experience that brings the overwhelming feelings to the book.  The reader comes away understanding what it felt like to live in Berlin at a time when the entire world turned upside down.  The overwhelming feelings of fear, suspicion, paranoia, and hatred come through in loud, almost overwhelming waves throughout the entire book.  I got the impression that Fallada tried to tell his own story, and simply found it too daunting a task — so took the next best alternative and presented a story that stereo-typed the experience, without disturbing the ghosts that the reader is painfully aware exist in the dark halls of his mind.  It is one thing to understand on an intellectual level the trauma of living in Nazi Germany.  But it is another matter entirely to see that world through the eyes of one victimized in the system — and lived to tell the tale.  It was this element that I simply couldn’t walk away from — and in the end I found myself having sleepless nights because I was so consumed with the haunted feelings the book leaves.

If you read simply for great story telling — this probably isn’t the book for you.  However, if you are interested in the dynamic that exists between the author and the work — and how these two at times work together in harmony, and at times sound discordant notes in the creative world — this is a fascinating read.

Tags: Concentration Camps, Death Penalty, Every Man Dies Alone, Fallada, Government, Grief, Hans, Historical Fiction, Loss, Memory, Morality, Murder, Nazi, Non-Fiction, Suffering, Suspense, World War II

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, History, Non-Fiction, Politics, Suspense/Thriller, True Crime, World War II