Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada: If you only read one book this year, make it this.

Having recently decided to make more time to read fiction, a pleasure I have neglected of late, I have been most fortunate to have started my quest with a book which I believe to be one, if not the finest book's ever written about German Resistance to the Nazis. Of course I would not expect you to take my word alone on this, but fortunately Primo Levi thought the same, so this book comes with one hell of a recommendation.

Alone In Berlin, written by Hans Fallada and first published in 1947 is about individual resistance to political tyranny. Its author best sums the book up when near the end he writes,

“We don’t want to end this book with death, dedicated as it is to life, life always triumphing over humiliation and tears, over misery and death.”

Indeed, for what this magnificently written tome is about is the triumph and victory of humanity. Not the bright sunny uplands type of victories that political propagandist on the left can revel in and repeat; and which become down the years all the greater with the telling. Monumental stories in which great men take the helm and shuffle the Masses about the place as if they are mere pawns on a historical chess board.

Alone in Berlin concentrates on small acts of resistance to injustice and evil that the best amongst us carry out, often silently, knowing full well if caught it will cost them their lives. They do so for a mirage of reasons both political and personal, the strongest being the need to prove to themselves and possibly the world they are not like the barbarians who rule over them, but decent people and with all their acts of murderous barbarism, the nazi scum will not take that away.

The book centers on the people who live in a very ordinary block of flats in a working class enclave of war torn Berlin. Amongst them we have a middle class professional who has seen better days and been forced by political events into a life of seclusion.

Fra Rosenthal, an elderly Jewish lady is clinging to freedom and life by the skin of her teeth, but who has been doomed by history and the rise of fascism. She has recently witnessed her husband, a small businessmen, being carted off by SA thugs. (To write arrested would give a legitimacy to what occurred which it does not warrant.)

A middle aged working class couple live on the floor below, Otto and Anna Quangel who have a son at the front. The husband, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker has worked at the same factory for most of his working life. Through hard work, diligence and keeping his head down and nose clean, he has risen to become a departmental Forman. He is the type of worker who is immensely proud of his craft, but due to the war, the factory has been turned over to making third rate coffins to be filled by the young men whose lives Hitler and his cohorts are stealing in their insane rush to create a thousand year Reich. For Quangel his work has become pointless and mechanical, even so, for his own self respect he works hard and keeps his thoughts to himself.

On the floor below there is the lower middle class Persickes, the father, a former publican who drank the profits is in the grip of alcoholism. He joined the Nazi party in the early days and due to this, his children have become cogs in the lower reaches of the Fascist State. Even further down the Nazi food chain are the Borkhausen’s, the ‘underclass’ lumpen family who live in the basement, plus their acquaintances who visit their home, all of whom rely on the pickings from the Nazi bone, which they gain by touting on their neighbors and community, and being green lighted to steal from the ‘enemies of the State.’

Finally a Gestapo investigator Inspector Escherich is brought into the picture, the type of mid-ranking police officer you can find the world over, whether it be within dictatorships or democracies. For such people the law thus a crime is what the State dictates; and those who break the law must be hunted down, unless that is they have strings they can pull or a party badge, which party is immaterial. Nazi, communist, reformist or conservative, the only criteria these cops insist upon is the badge holders party is in power, if not, into the meat grinder the miscreant goes. Individuals such as Escherich fear chaos above all things, once they have arrested the guilty party their job is done, the fate or even the guilt of the accused is no concern of theirs, all that matters is they have done their job and done it well. In this they are not that dissimilar to the worker Otto Quangel, but that is the only similarity between them and the honest worker.

As the story unfolds we learn of the swine, big and small, who have power within a fascist state. Pitted against Fallader places into the fray common decency, the little man and woman who resist because someone has to. I guarantee having read this book you will come away energized, informed, and understanding a little more about the frailties and strengths of human beings.