Alone in Berlin imagines a resistance to Hitler consisting of a husband and wife team who write and distribute handwritten index cards with anti-Nazi slogans on them, prompted by the meaningless death of their son at the front. Although it was published in Germany in 1947, this is the first time it has been translated into English.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag, really. For a start, it’s far too long and unfocused. There are too many incidental characters, many of whom are introduced as though they are going to be central to the story, but who drift out of it again. The writing is patchy and often cliché-laden, and the tone is somewhat distant, almost supercilious.
It takes a long while for the book to reach its peak, but when it does so it’s well worth it. Otto Quangel and his wife, the card writers, are arrested by the Gestapo and subjected to round after round of torture, in a vain attempt to uncover a wider anti-regime conspiracy, but of course there is none. One wonders if this is a subtle rebuke to Fallada’s post-war German readers?
The original German title is Jeder stirbt für sich allein, which is literally “Everyone dies for themselves alone”, or, more idiomatically, “Everyone dies alone”. It’s understandable that the publisher would want to give the book context on the shelves by inserting the word “Berlin”, but Everyone Dies Alone would certainly be a more accurate translation.
On balance, I’m glad I read Alone in Berlin, but it’s very far from being the “rediscovered masterpiece” the publishers claim it to be. Irène Némirovsky this isn’t.
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