Review of Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallade

Hello out there readers!
Hope your well. Thought I'd have another go at posting book reviews. This'll be the first for some time so if I'm a bit rusty, sorry!

Alone in Berlin is a recently published, "rediscovered" German novel originally published in 1947. I put rediscovered in parenthesis because it was never really lost, it just wasn't translated into English until now. The story is fictional but based on a true case that occurred in Berlin during the war.

The story concerns an ordinary, working class German family, the Quangels, who are coping with wartime Berlin and the privations of a Nazi led Germany. The husband, Otto, is a carpenter who is foreman in a factory that manufactures coffins. His wife, Anna, is a supportive, caring wife who puts up with Otto's ways. They lives in a tenement building occupied by a mixture of characters who feature at various point through the book.

At the outset, Otto and his wife, while not officially members of the Nazi party, do not have any major problems with the Nazi party machine. However, that all changes when their son, Ottochen is killed in action in France (Book starts in 1940). Otto at this point reassesses what is happening around him and realises that he is very unhappy and would like to do what he can to voice his opinion about the the war, propaganda and anything associated with the Nazi machine.
He decides he will write postcards and leave at various public locations to be found by people.

Over the next couple of years he writes over 200 cards which apparently are mostly handed by the people that find them because they are afraid of being caught with such seditious material in their possession.

Eventually, they are caught by their nemesis, Inspector Escheriche, a Gestapo officer, who despite all cliches written about this organisation, who comes across as a very sympathetic character who is more interested in detection than the Nazi party.

Through this chase, various characters, who are venal, greedy, criminal and nasty drop in and out of the tale and give it a gritty, seamy taste. It is the Quangels who bring a bit of humanity and warmth to the plot.

Overall, this is a very interesting slice of German war lift which is lifted from the banal by an unusual act of rebellion which actually occurred. It is sad, violent and full of pathos. The ending ultimately is one of hope.

The background of the author is also worthy of a book in itself. It seems he had major issues with substance abuse and was institutionalised with mental health problems for parts of his life. He was also a successful novelist. Sadly, he died at a young age before this, his best know book was published.