Read reviews from world’s largest community for readers. From the noticeboard. 20 March 2016 By James. Every Man Dies Alone or Alone in Berlin (German: Jeder stirbt für sich allein) is a 1947 novel by German author Hans Fallada.It is based on the true story of a working-class husband and wife Otto and Elise Hampel who, acting alone, became part of the German Resistance.Fallada's book was one of the first anti-Nazi novels to be published by a German after World War II. The original German title translates as "Everyone dies alone", and the phrase recurs like a refrain as the final part of the novel takes us down through the successive circles of a totalitarian hell, from the cells of Gestapo headquarters, through Moabit prison to the "People's Court" presided over by the psychopathic Roland Freisler, a real historical character who conducted the trials of the July 1944 conspirators. Tweet. What I liked about the book was how several separate storylines are woven together into one grand narrative. Under the Nazis, Fallada wrote and published a series of gritty novels of the type that German critics call neue Sachlichkeit, or new objectivity. Audience Reviews for Alone in Berlin. In a Berlin bookshop, two men reach for the same book. On the top floor, an elderly Jewish lady tries to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, while in the rear tenement, Emil Borkhausen, blackmailer and pimp, is sniffing around for a chance to turn a quick profit. The novel is based on real events and is a fascinating story, which provides a grim overview of life under the oppressive regime. Alone in Berlin book. In these closing chapters, the novel achieves real tragic grandeur, while its unsentimental depiction of quiet courage demonstrates that, even in the most hostile circumstances, human decency is never entirely extinguished. 2,889 reviews Inspired by a true story, Hans Fallada's Alone in Berlin is the gripping tale of an ordinary man's determination to defy the tyranny of Nazi rule. Books Book review: Alone in Berlin . -- George Steiner * Books of the Year, TLS * What makes Alone in Berlin such a cracking read is that it pushes us into the midst of that grim reality and yet allows us to put it down - only at the very end - with a feeling of warm humanity. There are no featured audience reviews for at this time. Gave you an insight on some german people that were not for ... Read full review. Alone in Berlin, By Hans Fallada trs Michael Hofmann This 1947 German tragic novel is a guide to the concentric circles of … Otto, a foreman in a furniture factory that soon will be turned over to making coffins, is provoked into resistance. And it shows. Slowly, the taciturn, apolitical foreman Quangel develops a plan. - Put sand in the machines! That changes in 1940 when their beloved son, Ottochen, is killed while fighting in France. To bring life to these facts, Fallada assembles a staff of vivid low-life characters, stoolies, thieves and whores, Nazi veterans in a haze of drink, as well as ordinary working-people trying to put food on the table. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? -- Peter Millar * The Times * Hans Fallada wrote Alone in Berlin between September and November 1946, in postwar East Germany. 3 min read. Alone in Berlin: 9781846140822: Books - Amazon.ca. Other editions - View all. 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