Tag Archives: Hans Fallada

Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada – 20 Books of Summer

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Wolf Among Wolves cover

Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada was first published in German in 1937. I didn’t like this one as much as other readers seemed to have. It might just have been the wrong book at the wrong time, but I felt it didn’t need to be so long (793 pages).

The book begins in Berlin in 1923 where the German economy is in freefall with inflation getting crazier every day, the German Mark is falling daily against the American Dollar, people in the city are starving as their wages are worth nothing by the time they get paid, and one dollar is worth millions of marks.

Wolfgang Pagel, a young ex-soldier who had been at the front is the spoiled son of a famous but now deceased artist. He’s estranged from his wealthy mother and is now living in a poor part of Berlin with Petra, his girlfriend. Wolf is a compulsive gambler and every night he goes to an illegal casino which is set up in someone’s front room in the more salubrious west of the city. Wolf is happy if he wins enough money to buy some food the next day and can pay the rent, sadly he often doesn’t have the money and then he has to pawn Petra’s clothes and she has to stay in bed. Of course he thinks he has a system and will win a fortune the next evening. A series of unfortunate incidents lead to Petra being jailed on what should have been their wedding day, but Wolf is so wrapped up in himself that he doesn’t get around to even visiting her never mind getting her out.

Bizzarely Wolf leaves the city and gets work on a farm, despite having no farming experience he’s working as a sort of manager in charge of the farm workers and foresters, but he really enjoys the hard work. It isn’t long before he realises that the peasants aren’t the honest toilers that he thought they were and are no better than the city dwellers had been. The owner of the farm is a power freak and miser who spends his time trying to ruin his son-in-law whom he has as a tenant on the farm. There are various relationships going on, none of them happy.

Then due to the political and economic situation some in the army organise a putsch which is a shambles and some on the farm are involved in it. This book does have a happy ending of sorts but I thought that Wolf’s character made a very unlikely about turn as soon as he got into the country, and I kept wondering what was happening to Petra throughout most of the book, and for me she was the most interesting character.

The publisher thought that this book might get them into trouble with the Nazis, but it didn’t. Fallada chose to stay in Germany during the Nazi era, that’s something which others who had left Germany, such as Thomas Mann disliked him for. But in 1935 Fallada had been imprisoned by the Gestapo and described as an ‘undesirable author’ – not for long though as they couldn’t find any anti-Nazi material in his home. I’m amazed they didn’t plant stuff! Apparently Goebbels was breathing down Fallada’s neck trying to get him to write an anti-semitic tract, that couldn’t have been comfortable.

This is the third book that I’ve read by Fallada, I much preferred his Alone in Berlin to this one, despite it having a depressing ending.

This was on of my 20 Books of Summer.

Aberdeen book purchases

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Jack had done his homework and looked up the addresses of the secondhand bookshops in Aberdeen before we got there. There’s a great online directory that you can see here.

So when we were in Aberdeen the first port of call was Old Aberdeen Bookshop, which took us to a part of the city we hadn’t been to before. It was my kind of place, not very big but crammed with books, double parked on the shelves and piled all over the floor. I dug into the piles and Jack even found a couple of books there he knew I would like, so it’s not all my fault! But I thought I had only bought five books there – it turns out it was much worse than that. It’s a real mixed bag and showcases my catholic taste I suppose.

Books Again

The Enchanted Land (1906) by Scottish author Louey Chisholm and illustrated by another Scot Katharine Cameron. The illustrations are really enchanting and you can see some of her work here.

The other book for children (of all ages) that I bought is Cockle Button, Cockle Ben (1943) by Richard Phibbs and illustrated by Gladys M. Rees which has very different illustrations but is very much of its time and is almost equally charming.

Jack found Money by Emile Zola for me, another one to add to my Classics Club list.

He also found Wolf Among Wolves by Hans Fallada, a great find as his books rarely pop up in secondhand bookshops – at a reasonable price anyway.

The last three are all by the Scottish author Jane Duncan who also writes as Janet Sandison.
My Friend Flora
My Friend Muriel and
My Friends the Miss Boyds

I read some of her books back in the 1970s when they were very popular but I can’t remember anything about them. The blurb is hopeful though, one front cover says: A riotous romp – moving, funny, fresh and alive. They might be the perfect light reading for when the news is too depressing.

Have you read any of these books?

Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada

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Nightmare in Berlin cover

Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada was published in German in 1947 and it was translated by Allan Blunden.

This is the second book by Hans Fallada that I’ve read, the first one was Alone in Berlin and although that one is more tense and ultimately very sad, I preferred it to this one which dragged a bit in the middle for me.

The book begins in April 1945 Berlin, for the Germans the war is over. Doctor Doll is the mayor of a small town in north-east Germany and it’s now occupied by the Russians. Doll had been quite a successful writer before the war and he had lived in Berlin but he and his wife had had enough of the bombing raids earlier in the war and had moved to the small town. In the end things didn’t go well for them there so they returned to Berlin.

It transpires that Doctor Doll and his wife are both addicts, she’s a morphine addict and he’s a sleeping tablet addict and in Berlin their entire life revolves around getting their next fix. Addiction is common, especially amongst the medical profession, apparently nerves had been shattered by the bombs and people had resorted to chemical crutches.

At the beginning of this book the inhabitants are all trying to distance themselves from the Nazis and feel guilt over the war that they had started, but towards the end the life they were all having to lead is making some of them long for the good old days of the Nazis when food was more plentiful.

The blurb on the back says:

An unforgettable portrayal of the physical and psychological devastation wrought in the homeland by Hitler’s war.

Hans Fallada was dying when this book was about to be published and from the potted biography at the beginning of the book it’s obvious that this is really based on his own experiences.

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada

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Alone in Berlin cover

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada was a completely random choice by me at the library. The book was first published in 1947 and although it’s a Penguin Modern Classic, I had never heard of it.

What a read it is! Given the subject matter it is obviously not a comfy read in fact it’s really quite horrific in parts, especially when you realise that a lot of it was based on actual happenings.

The setting is Berlin in 1940. It’s a city full of fear, run by thugs and gangsters in various uniforms, with spies everywhere. Many of the people are Nazi Party members, often just so they can get a decent job, but then they are expected to contribute so much money to various Nazi funds. It’s quite similar to the austerity that the British government likes to control those of us in the UK with – only worse.

But some of the people are tired of living in fear and when Otto Quangel’s soldier son is killed it’s the last straw for him. He has to do something to fight against the Nazis and decides that the best thing he can do is write postcards criticising the Nazis and the war and leaving them around Berlin, thinking that they will be passed around by whoever finds them. His wife Anna thinks that they should be doing more than that but as he would be executed if he was caught she agrees that it is enough and ends up helping him.

Sadly almost all of the postcards are handed in to the Gestapo as soon as they are found. Everyone is too terrified to have something like that in their possession. Gestapo Inspector Escherich has the job of tracking down the perpetrator, and his superiors aren’t impressed that it is taking him so long to do it, he’s living in fear of being sent to a concentration camp if he can’t find the culprit.

Meanwhile the other inhabitants in their tenement block are brought into the story. Mrs Rosenthal is an old Jewish woman, on her own now since her husband was taken away by the Gestapo. The Persickes are red hot Nazi thugs, drunken and violent and keen to get their hands on Mrs Rosenthal’s possessions.

Alone in Berlin tells how the Nazis got a grip on the German people in 1933 and by the time they started taking over other countries their own people were also well under control. Of course lots of them were very enthusiastic Nazis but those who weren’t had to keep their heads down, otherwise they would lose them!

It had never occurred to me before that while people in the UK were having to live with harsh rationing, a lot of Germans were enjoying the good life as so much stuff had been looted from the countries that they were over-running.

This is a great read but Hans Fallada got the idea for it from an actual couple who did exactly what Otto and Anna had done, and came to a similar end – a horrible thought.

The author had quite a wild life himself, with alcoholism and drug addiction. I’ll definitely be seeking out his other books.

This book is a Penguin Modern Classic so I read this one for the Classics Club.