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More Lives Than One: A Biography of Hans Fallada
The German novelist Hans Fallada (1893-1947), whose most famous work, Little Man - What Now?, became the last bestseller of the Weimar Republic, was one of the very few liberal humanist writers to remain in Germany throughout the Nazi era.
Fallada's work is still widely read in Germany today. It provides an unusually honest record of the country's crisis and decline after the First World War; Fallada always stands alongside his fictional characters, never in judgement over them. He also described his own mortal struggle against the morphine and cocaine addiction which began in his youth. His life throws a new, sometimes surprising light on Germany. From his comfortable but psychologically disturbed middle-class upbringing, and his years of active delinquency (leading to several periods in asylums and prisons), through his private happiness and public success in the late Weimar years, to the often self-inflicted humiliations of the Third Reich period and his self-destructive last years, Fallada hardly stopped writing and bearing witness.
Fallada's work is still widely read in Germany today. It provides an unusually honest record of the country's crisis and decline after the First World War; Fallada always stands alongside his fictional characters, never in judgement over them. He also described his own mortal struggle against the morphine and cocaine addiction which began in his youth. His life throws a new, sometimes surprising light on Germany. From his comfortable but psychologically disturbed middle-class upbringing, and his years of active delinquency (leading to several periods in asylums and prisons), through his private happiness and public success in the late Weimar years, to the often self-inflicted humiliations of the Third Reich period and his self-destructive last years, Fallada hardly stopped writing and bearing witness.
300 pages, Hardcover
First published October 28, 1996
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March 22, 2016Ova biografija je s jedne strane beskrajno iscrpna a sa druge... pa, beskrajno iscrpna :/ nekako bi mi bilo draži za mrvicu senzacionalističkiji pristup, ili da su bar prioriteti autorke bili manje strogi i da smo saznali malo više o nekim ljudima ili da se malo slobodnije izražavala o tome šta misli o svom predmetu proučavanja (tm) ili da je makar žrtvovala malo (inače stvarno korisnog) istorijskog konteksta.
Recimo, Dicen/Falada se oko 1918. navuče na morfijum. Autorka kaže ovako: "Na morfijum ga je verovatno navukao taj-i-taj, sin iz prvog braka Faladine tadašnje devojke, inače kelnerice" i ja sednem i počnem da računam na prste da bih proverila koliko godina ima ta 'devojka' sa kojom se Falada zabavljao kad je imao dvaespet godina. Dvestotinak strana i cca 15 godina kasnije ona dolazi (sa onim istim sinom!) u posetu Faladi i njegovoj porodici da se pozdravi pre nego što emigrira u Ameriku i a da, postala je vajarka?! Pa to vapi makar za nekom fusnotom, ali neee. Umesto toga su pedantno pobrojane sve Faladine posete zubaru, godišnji odmori, svinjokolji, imena daktilografkinja... zapravo i neke daktilografkinje deluju zanimljivo ali se autorka suzdržava i od iznošenja tračeva.
Psihologizacija u biografiji je zlo!... pristrasnost je zlo!... zato ne saznajemo ništa detaljnije o tome zašto i kako se tačno Falada kao gimnazijalac dogovorio sa drugom da ubiju jedan drugog, pa je drug promašio a Falada nije (objašnjenje je da su se tada gimnazijalci ionako mnogo ubijali); kako je Falada cinkario drugove robijaše ili kako se osećala njegova (dotle uglavnom bivša) žena koju su '45. silovali ruski vojnici kad su odmah potom Faladu Rusi postavili za privremenog gradonačelnika u njihovom malom mestu (ne zadugo, sve te godine drogiranja, opijanja i maničnih depresija, plus gostovanja po zatvorima i ludnicama plus manično pisanje jelte skratilo mu je ovu šarenu biografiju...)
Zapravo sve ovo nisu neke ozbiljne zamerke koje bi išle autorki na dušu, prosto, Falada je lik koji vapi za nekim tako retro sočnim biografom koji se ne usteže od malko maštanja (tako, pozni XIX, rani XX vek), a ne za nekim koji evo otprilike ovako prikazuje scenu iz bračnog života: "Mrtav pijan, Falada je te večeri pucao, ne baš u svoju bivšu ženu, ali ipak u njenom prisustvu, pa mu je ona otela pištolj, klepila ga njime po glavi, istrčala napolje i bacila ga (pištolj) u jezero i onda uredno pozvala policiju" i onda se raspravlja dalje o tome da li bi Falada zbilja završio u zatvoru da dežurni sudija nije bio pokvarenjak itd itd. Sve ozbiljno dokumentovano sudskim izveštajima, pismima, fusnotirano, ali nigde da to malo živne, mislim, to se dešava u njihovoj bivšoj zajedničkoj kuhinji! u kući sa njihovo dvoje-troje dece, plus služavke od kojih je neke naš junak *intimno* poznavao! Do te rečenice bukvalno nismo znali da je držao pištolj u kući a žena je prikazivana kao posvećena domaćica koja ga svetački trpi! A po ovome vidimo da je u pitanju žena koja mu OTME pištolj i odvali ga po glavi, pa aman, takva ličnost zavređuje malo više pažnje i osvetljavanja sa više strana, a još saznajemo da ju je biografica intervjuisala 1983, pa ono, ispričaj nam šta je bilo sa njom posle :'(
A inače, da, zanimljiva je knjiga jer eto verno i bez nekog ulepšavanja prikazuje život talentovanog pisca, ali slabića, proneveritelja i cinkaroša, ali ipak mislim da ću potražiti neku filmsku adaptaciju, valjda su si oni dali malo više slobode -.-
Recimo, Dicen/Falada se oko 1918. navuče na morfijum. Autorka kaže ovako: "Na morfijum ga je verovatno navukao taj-i-taj, sin iz prvog braka Faladine tadašnje devojke, inače kelnerice" i ja sednem i počnem da računam na prste da bih proverila koliko godina ima ta 'devojka' sa kojom se Falada zabavljao kad je imao dvaespet godina. Dvestotinak strana i cca 15 godina kasnije ona dolazi (sa onim istim sinom!) u posetu Faladi i njegovoj porodici da se pozdravi pre nego što emigrira u Ameriku i a da, postala je vajarka?! Pa to vapi makar za nekom fusnotom, ali neee. Umesto toga su pedantno pobrojane sve Faladine posete zubaru, godišnji odmori, svinjokolji, imena daktilografkinja... zapravo i neke daktilografkinje deluju zanimljivo ali se autorka suzdržava i od iznošenja tračeva.
Psihologizacija u biografiji je zlo!... pristrasnost je zlo!... zato ne saznajemo ništa detaljnije o tome zašto i kako se tačno Falada kao gimnazijalac dogovorio sa drugom da ubiju jedan drugog, pa je drug promašio a Falada nije (objašnjenje je da su se tada gimnazijalci ionako mnogo ubijali); kako je Falada cinkario drugove robijaše ili kako se osećala njegova (dotle uglavnom bivša) žena koju su '45. silovali ruski vojnici kad su odmah potom Faladu Rusi postavili za privremenog gradonačelnika u njihovom malom mestu (ne zadugo, sve te godine drogiranja, opijanja i maničnih depresija, plus gostovanja po zatvorima i ludnicama plus manično pisanje jelte skratilo mu je ovu šarenu biografiju...)
Zapravo sve ovo nisu neke ozbiljne zamerke koje bi išle autorki na dušu, prosto, Falada je lik koji vapi za nekim tako retro sočnim biografom koji se ne usteže od malko maštanja (tako, pozni XIX, rani XX vek), a ne za nekim koji evo otprilike ovako prikazuje scenu iz bračnog života: "Mrtav pijan, Falada je te večeri pucao, ne baš u svoju bivšu ženu, ali ipak u njenom prisustvu, pa mu je ona otela pištolj, klepila ga njime po glavi, istrčala napolje i bacila ga (pištolj) u jezero i onda uredno pozvala policiju" i onda se raspravlja dalje o tome da li bi Falada zbilja završio u zatvoru da dežurni sudija nije bio pokvarenjak itd itd. Sve ozbiljno dokumentovano sudskim izveštajima, pismima, fusnotirano, ali nigde da to malo živne, mislim, to se dešava u njihovoj bivšoj zajedničkoj kuhinji! u kući sa njihovo dvoje-troje dece, plus služavke od kojih je neke naš junak *intimno* poznavao! Do te rečenice bukvalno nismo znali da je držao pištolj u kući a žena je prikazivana kao posvećena domaćica koja ga svetački trpi! A po ovome vidimo da je u pitanju žena koja mu OTME pištolj i odvali ga po glavi, pa aman, takva ličnost zavređuje malo više pažnje i osvetljavanja sa više strana, a još saznajemo da ju je biografica intervjuisala 1983, pa ono, ispričaj nam šta je bilo sa njom posle :'(
A inače, da, zanimljiva je knjiga jer eto verno i bez nekog ulepšavanja prikazuje život talentovanog pisca, ali slabića, proneveritelja i cinkaroša, ali ipak mislim da ću potražiti neku filmsku adaptaciju, valjda su si oni dali malo više slobode -.-
October 17, 2016
German author Hans Fallada wrote novels and non-fiction, maintaining a successful writing career from the 1920's until his death in 1947. He published through changes in government, from the Weimar Republic through the Third Reich, and into the Communist regime in East Germany. His novels, in print and popular, managed to skirt the governmental authority's - whichever government was in power at the time - and avoid the censorship to which other authors were subject. In "More Lives than One", Jenny Williams updates a biography of Fallada originally published in the 1990's, to take advantage of the renewed interest in Fallada's work.
"Hans Fallada" was the name Rudolf Ditzen adopted as his pseudonym when he began publishing. The son of an upper middle class German family, centered mostly in the northern part of the country, Ditzen, who was born in 1893, one of four children. His only brother Ulrich was killed in WW1. Rudolf avoided wartime duty because he had spent periods in mental hospitals and prisons. He had a creative, yet fragile and addictive personality, and when he began publishing his writing in the 1920's, he was an almost immediate success. His first successful novel, "What Now, Little Man", published to much acclaim in 1932 was the story of a German "every man" figure, who battled life and economic forces in the late 1920's and early 1930's. Ditzen kept overt politics out of most of his writing. This was, of course, a prerequisite for successful publishing in Germany, especially after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930's. He stayed in Germany during the 30's and 40's - not emigrating as so many German writers, both Jewish and gentile, did - and wrote movie screenplays and other sanctioned works. After the war, he wrote his most famous book, "Every Man Dies Alone", a novel about individual wartime resistance, based on the activities of a real couple who were murdered by the Nazis when they were discovered. Rudolf Ditzen died right before publication of "Every Man", in 1947.
How did Rudolf Ditzen manage to capture the German character so well? He was certainly careful, in general, not to anger the authorities with his writing. But he wrote about the times and the people with such a plainness of prose that most readers were able to recognise themselves or others they knew well. I suppose that by concentrating on the everyday exteriors of those he wrote about, he was able to see inside these same people. His novels - and I've read three - are certainly as fresh and interesting 75 years after they were written as they were when first published.
Jenny Williams, the author of "More Lives Than One", has written a lively biography of both Rudolf Ditzen, the people around him, and the times he lived in. I'd suggest reading both Williams AND Fallada for a good historical record of the Germany of the first half of the 20th century.
"Hans Fallada" was the name Rudolf Ditzen adopted as his pseudonym when he began publishing. The son of an upper middle class German family, centered mostly in the northern part of the country, Ditzen, who was born in 1893, one of four children. His only brother Ulrich was killed in WW1. Rudolf avoided wartime duty because he had spent periods in mental hospitals and prisons. He had a creative, yet fragile and addictive personality, and when he began publishing his writing in the 1920's, he was an almost immediate success. His first successful novel, "What Now, Little Man", published to much acclaim in 1932 was the story of a German "every man" figure, who battled life and economic forces in the late 1920's and early 1930's. Ditzen kept overt politics out of most of his writing. This was, of course, a prerequisite for successful publishing in Germany, especially after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930's. He stayed in Germany during the 30's and 40's - not emigrating as so many German writers, both Jewish and gentile, did - and wrote movie screenplays and other sanctioned works. After the war, he wrote his most famous book, "Every Man Dies Alone", a novel about individual wartime resistance, based on the activities of a real couple who were murdered by the Nazis when they were discovered. Rudolf Ditzen died right before publication of "Every Man", in 1947.
How did Rudolf Ditzen manage to capture the German character so well? He was certainly careful, in general, not to anger the authorities with his writing. But he wrote about the times and the people with such a plainness of prose that most readers were able to recognise themselves or others they knew well. I suppose that by concentrating on the everyday exteriors of those he wrote about, he was able to see inside these same people. His novels - and I've read three - are certainly as fresh and interesting 75 years after they were written as they were when first published.
Jenny Williams, the author of "More Lives Than One", has written a lively biography of both Rudolf Ditzen, the people around him, and the times he lived in. I'd suggest reading both Williams AND Fallada for a good historical record of the Germany of the first half of the 20th century.
January 28, 2017
What a life: face kicked in by a horse, staged duel meant to hide a suicide attempt kills friend, ensuing legal trouble, mental asylum, work on a farm, morphine and cocaine and alcohol addictions, embezzles from employer, sobers up and becomes a model prisoner (and fink), lands in jail again, works for a corrupt newspaper, money problems, international bestselling author, nervous breakdowns, rise of Nazism, in an out of asylums, denounced by Nazis, tries to play it safe, more denunciations, Goebbels becomes a fan of his anti-Weimar novel, tries to placate Nazis by writing crap, they don't buy it, "undesirable artist" designation, decides not to flee country, alcohol and extramarital affairs, villagers and family members denounce him, procures paper rations under false pretences by pretending he's going to write an anti-semitic novel, shoots a gun at his ex-wife, writes secret anti-fascist works in an asylum, war ends, Soviets appoint him as village mayor, marries a new wife and they get addicted to morphine (again), more asylums, writes seminal book about life and acts of resistance in Nazi Germany (it's 500+ pages and he writes it in 24 days), dies before publication.
March 18, 2014
A stunning, if somewhat depressing, biography of Hans Fallada.
Hans Fallada was all but forgotten outside Germany when his 1947 novel, Alone in Berlin (US title: Every Man Dies Alone), was reissued in English in 2009, whereupon it became a best seller and reintroduced Hans Fallada's work to a new generation of readers.
Jenny Williams, here refers to Hans Fallada as Rudolf Ditzen - his real name, and the name he used throughout his life. Where this biography scores especially highly for me is in its clear eyed depiction of Germany throughout the first 50 years of the twentieth century.
Rudolf Ditzen grows up in the rigid, authoritarian German society of the pre-World War One Wilhelmine era and this biography throws up all kinds of fascinating details about everyday life and social trends. Here's one example, when Rudolf was a teenager there were an extraordinary number of suicides in Rudolf's class. This was part of a much broader wave of suicides and suicide attempts that swept through Germany in the years before World War One. Germany's strict society during this period apparently inducing despair and hopelessness amongst many of the young.
Ditzen was a deeply troubled individual, prone to bouts of mental torment resulting in regular periods in psychiatric care. He was also variously addicted to drugs and alcohol, stole and spent time in jail, and was unfaithful to his first wife. All of these behaviours were exacerbated during the Nazi era and, again, Jenny Williams perfectly evokes the living hell of everyday life for many ordinary Germans under this regime. Imagine everyone in a position of influence being a small minded, vindictive Daily Mail reader, and your neighbours being encouraged to report anything that might be considered inappropriate. These reports leading to persecution, prison, or the concentration camp.
Ditzen is denounced by neighbours on numerous occasions throughout the 1930s and 1940s and, on one occasion, this results in a spell in prison, the confiscation of the house he owned, and plunges him into another of his regular nervous breakdowns. Ditzen is generally viewed with suspicion by the Nazis and therefore has to severely compromise his work by retreating into children's stories and innocuous historical fiction having been declared an 'undesirable author'. Whilst many contemporaries emigrated he chose to stay in Germany and was therefore perfectly placed to witness, first-hand, the everyday horrors during this era.
I read this biography before reading any of Hans Fallada's work. I now feel very well informed about his life and work, and I am feeling very enthused about reading his books. Ditzen's friend and colleague, Paul Mayer, is quoted at the end of the book: "German literature has not many realistic writers. Hans Fallada is one of them. His work, mutilated by political terror, is even as a torso important enough not to be forgotten."
This book works on so many levels, and includes memorable insights into the social history of Germany, the life of a tortured artist, and the subtle but insistent day-to-day horrors of life under a fascist regime.
Since reading this book I have now also read Alone in Berlin (UK title) / Every Man Dies Alone (USA title) by Hans Fallada. I can only echo the praise that has been heaped on this astonishingly good, rediscovered World War Two masterpiece. It's a truly great book: gripping, profound and essential.
Hans Fallada was all but forgotten outside Germany when his 1947 novel, Alone in Berlin (US title: Every Man Dies Alone), was reissued in English in 2009, whereupon it became a best seller and reintroduced Hans Fallada's work to a new generation of readers.
Jenny Williams, here refers to Hans Fallada as Rudolf Ditzen - his real name, and the name he used throughout his life. Where this biography scores especially highly for me is in its clear eyed depiction of Germany throughout the first 50 years of the twentieth century.
Rudolf Ditzen grows up in the rigid, authoritarian German society of the pre-World War One Wilhelmine era and this biography throws up all kinds of fascinating details about everyday life and social trends. Here's one example, when Rudolf was a teenager there were an extraordinary number of suicides in Rudolf's class. This was part of a much broader wave of suicides and suicide attempts that swept through Germany in the years before World War One. Germany's strict society during this period apparently inducing despair and hopelessness amongst many of the young.
Ditzen was a deeply troubled individual, prone to bouts of mental torment resulting in regular periods in psychiatric care. He was also variously addicted to drugs and alcohol, stole and spent time in jail, and was unfaithful to his first wife. All of these behaviours were exacerbated during the Nazi era and, again, Jenny Williams perfectly evokes the living hell of everyday life for many ordinary Germans under this regime. Imagine everyone in a position of influence being a small minded, vindictive Daily Mail reader, and your neighbours being encouraged to report anything that might be considered inappropriate. These reports leading to persecution, prison, or the concentration camp.
Ditzen is denounced by neighbours on numerous occasions throughout the 1930s and 1940s and, on one occasion, this results in a spell in prison, the confiscation of the house he owned, and plunges him into another of his regular nervous breakdowns. Ditzen is generally viewed with suspicion by the Nazis and therefore has to severely compromise his work by retreating into children's stories and innocuous historical fiction having been declared an 'undesirable author'. Whilst many contemporaries emigrated he chose to stay in Germany and was therefore perfectly placed to witness, first-hand, the everyday horrors during this era.
I read this biography before reading any of Hans Fallada's work. I now feel very well informed about his life and work, and I am feeling very enthused about reading his books. Ditzen's friend and colleague, Paul Mayer, is quoted at the end of the book: "German literature has not many realistic writers. Hans Fallada is one of them. His work, mutilated by political terror, is even as a torso important enough not to be forgotten."
This book works on so many levels, and includes memorable insights into the social history of Germany, the life of a tortured artist, and the subtle but insistent day-to-day horrors of life under a fascist regime.
Since reading this book I have now also read Alone in Berlin (UK title) / Every Man Dies Alone (USA title) by Hans Fallada. I can only echo the praise that has been heaped on this astonishingly good, rediscovered World War Two masterpiece. It's a truly great book: gripping, profound and essential.
June 22, 2015
I love the books of Hans Fallada (the pen name for writer Rudolf Ditzen) and this succinct and calm biography places his work in the context of an interesting and colourful life. This embraces German history from 1893 to 1947, but Fallada was not really a major, established writer, although he did become popular after 1932, and his understanding of the great and terrible events to which he was witness is shown to be very weak. He did not entertain any commitment to the various political philosophies available to him from the Left or the Right, and did not attempt to interpret events in terms of any systematic analysis. His commitment was to decency and to the need of ordinary people to make a life for themselves and their families regardless of the social chaos and corruption surrounding them.
Jenny Williams remarks at one point: "...his great strength as a writer - his ability to reflect the views and emotions of his fellow Germans - was, at the same time, a great weakness, which could render him incapable of independent thought and action." [p148] Similarly: "...Ditzen was concerned primarily to depict the results of inflation on German society and was not interested in, or indeed capable of , analyzing the causes of the widespread misery..." {p188] Paradoxically, although the same is often observed in other writers and artists, this quite humble perspective, the focus on everyday life, enabled him to produce some of the most insightful and even devastating commentary on his times. For example, his excellent novel "The Small Circus" takes no sides and yet ends up as a powerful indictment of the corruption of local political life in Germany of the time. It is hard to see how democracy could function under such conditions but we did not really need Fallada to point that out; the novel speaks for itself.
His decision to remain in Germany through the Nazi era was arguably naive and severely frustrated his ability to develop as a writer. He felt unable to consider living outside of Germany and was not inclined to be forced to leave, though he very nearly did and was arguably the only respected writer to remain alive in Germany in this period (I do not know enough to assert this, but the book does). He was not a collaborator; he did make some necessary concessions, partly through naivety, partly to survive, but he remained true to his personal ethics and principles, he was willing to tweak the noses of his tormentors and he was fortunate to come through at all. Somehow, as the book wryly observes in an echo of Pastor Niemöller which is not explicit but I am sure intended, he never quite fitted into any of the categories targeted by the Nazis. "It also has to be said that his opposition to the Nazi regime was an instinctive, emotional one, based on rather nebulous and individual concepts such as 'decency', not on a firm philosophical foundation such as Christianity or Marxism. This does not diminish his rejection of fascism in any way, but it does mean that his opposition remained isolated, individual and, like most opposition inside Germany, largely ineffective." [p175]
For our purposes, it gave him an insight into life under a totalitarian regime which informed his final novel, Alone in Berlin. That in turn helps to appreciate the limits of what was possible for any individual and so the novel reads back into the biography. Indeed, his fiction was very much constructed around his personal experiences and this biography evoked for me countless sparks of recognition, as the novels made additional sense of his life and his life made sense of his novels.
Jenny Williams remarks at one point: "...his great strength as a writer - his ability to reflect the views and emotions of his fellow Germans - was, at the same time, a great weakness, which could render him incapable of independent thought and action." [p148] Similarly: "...Ditzen was concerned primarily to depict the results of inflation on German society and was not interested in, or indeed capable of , analyzing the causes of the widespread misery..." {p188] Paradoxically, although the same is often observed in other writers and artists, this quite humble perspective, the focus on everyday life, enabled him to produce some of the most insightful and even devastating commentary on his times. For example, his excellent novel "The Small Circus" takes no sides and yet ends up as a powerful indictment of the corruption of local political life in Germany of the time. It is hard to see how democracy could function under such conditions but we did not really need Fallada to point that out; the novel speaks for itself.
His decision to remain in Germany through the Nazi era was arguably naive and severely frustrated his ability to develop as a writer. He felt unable to consider living outside of Germany and was not inclined to be forced to leave, though he very nearly did and was arguably the only respected writer to remain alive in Germany in this period (I do not know enough to assert this, but the book does). He was not a collaborator; he did make some necessary concessions, partly through naivety, partly to survive, but he remained true to his personal ethics and principles, he was willing to tweak the noses of his tormentors and he was fortunate to come through at all. Somehow, as the book wryly observes in an echo of Pastor Niemöller which is not explicit but I am sure intended, he never quite fitted into any of the categories targeted by the Nazis. "It also has to be said that his opposition to the Nazi regime was an instinctive, emotional one, based on rather nebulous and individual concepts such as 'decency', not on a firm philosophical foundation such as Christianity or Marxism. This does not diminish his rejection of fascism in any way, but it does mean that his opposition remained isolated, individual and, like most opposition inside Germany, largely ineffective." [p175]
For our purposes, it gave him an insight into life under a totalitarian regime which informed his final novel, Alone in Berlin. That in turn helps to appreciate the limits of what was possible for any individual and so the novel reads back into the biography. Indeed, his fiction was very much constructed around his personal experiences and this biography evoked for me countless sparks of recognition, as the novels made additional sense of his life and his life made sense of his novels.
June 27, 2012
A biography of Hans Fallada who wrote " Alone in Berlin " one of my favourite books of the last few years and firmly in the European intellectual tradition
Although Fallada had a turbulent life including drug addiction and alchoholism and living in Germany during WW11 , this biography is a bit lifeless in that Fallada remains stuck on the pages and never comes to life . I am sure it is factually correct but I found reading it a slight struggle .
Although Fallada had a turbulent life including drug addiction and alchoholism and living in Germany during WW11 , this biography is a bit lifeless in that Fallada remains stuck on the pages and never comes to life . I am sure it is factually correct but I found reading it a slight struggle .
October 2, 2011
A pretty workaday biography which never quite manages to make Fallada come to life. But essential reading nevertheless for anyone interested in his work.
May 11, 2019
In recent years I have developed a keen interest in the works of Hans Fallada, spurred (in part) by how his writing reflects his experiences in Germany during the pivotal years between the ends of both world wars. Each of his novels that I have read so far have to some extent included some autobiographical detail, so it seemed appropriate before continuing my journey through his work that I try and get a handle on Fallada's life. Hence my acquisition and reading of Williams' biography.
Throughout the biography one is continually reminded of the social, cultural and political aspects the world around Fallada (or Rudolf Ditzen as Williams more properly calls him, not using his nom de plume), however it is Fallada's emotional, psychological, familial and professional life that forms the core of this book. There is no doubt that, as Williams depicts her subject, Fallada was an intensely compromised, damaged and complex person who failed to meet all the challenges his life and the wider world threw at him. These failures are not totally negative, nor are they ones that come about through fate or misfortune; they are in fact the key pathways that inform his writing and make him such an intriguing personality. However make no mistake; Williams' does not create an impression of Fallada that allows for hero worship. This is a significant achievement and to some extent mirrors the underpinning quality of the best of Fallada's writing.
The structure and style of Williams' work is for the most part effective and informative. She has developed her biography from extensive biographical research and is obviously more than competent in her German/English translation skills. The narrative is fairly simple, following a strictly chronological path with the most important persons who had an impact on Fallada's life given appropriate attention. His family and his professional relationships are given considerable focus and it is certainly part of Williams' construction of Fallada's life that his emotional and psychological states were formed in the most part by these. For example, Williams places great store in Fallada's sense of justice having come from his father's influence, whilst his continual mental health battles are often due to those 'battles' he fought with his wives and his publishers. If one is to derive one major observation about Fallada from this biography it's that the author was literally driven to produce such vast quantities of work both because and in spite of these emotional issues that were stirred up by his family and friends.
Williams does a very decent job of describing the 'macro' level influences on Fallada's ife, such as the social environment of Wilhelmine Germany, the First World War, the economic and political crises that started and ended the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime and the aftermath of World War Two. These are significant to Fallada's story because ultimately it is his reactions to and observations on how these issues effected himself and 'ordinary' Germans that make his work so valuable. Just as Dickens is the author of the Victorian-era poor, Fallada is the author of Germans of the first half of the 20th Century, and Williams is most successful in contextualising Fallada's life and work with the wider world he lived in.
I was somewhat disappointed with the penultimate chapter that dealt with Fallada's life in Nazi Germany during the war years. I'm not sure if Williams has made enough headway with the challenge of explaining the moral complexity of Fallada's relationship with the Nazis, and his acceptance of their totalitarian regime. It is a huge question that, to be fair, would be incredibly difficult for anyone to formulate an answer to (and Fallada seems to have developed numerous differing strategies in justifying and/or condemning himself). Perhaps the focus on Fallada's sense of 'cowardice', his desire to remain connected to Germany and his 'German-ness', and pure economic need are adequate answers, perhaps not.
As for the final chapter, with its focus on Fallada's life, writing and ultimately, his death in the period immediately after World War Two, it seems somewhat perfunctory and hurried. This may (in part) reflect the availability of materials that deal with that time in Fallada's life, however I would be surprised if this is the case. The role of his second wife Ulla in his last few years seems to be under-examined, and as for Fallada's death and legacy, these are barely given more than a page of discussion. It was rather disappointing to read this biography with its general wealth of information and observations to be confronted at the end with a coda that is almost superficial and perfunctory.
In summary, Williams has written the seminal biography of Hans Fallada/Rudoph Ditzen in English. She has done a mostly excellent job of developing a construct of the author as a man in and of his times, his work, and the considerable external influences on his life. She has not shied away from presenting Fallada as a flawed man whose literary potential was perhaps unfulfilled, with appropriate literary criticism that corresponds with the biographical evidence to support her thesis. 'More Lives Than One' has some value as an examination of a German life during the most challenging period in that country's social, economic, political and cultural development in all its history, however it is at its most valuable in its depiction and analysis of one of the most significant voices to emerge from this context. A very solid bio which I would recommend to anyone who is a student of modern German history and literature, and to everyone who has enjoyed Fallada's writing.
Throughout the biography one is continually reminded of the social, cultural and political aspects the world around Fallada (or Rudolf Ditzen as Williams more properly calls him, not using his nom de plume), however it is Fallada's emotional, psychological, familial and professional life that forms the core of this book. There is no doubt that, as Williams depicts her subject, Fallada was an intensely compromised, damaged and complex person who failed to meet all the challenges his life and the wider world threw at him. These failures are not totally negative, nor are they ones that come about through fate or misfortune; they are in fact the key pathways that inform his writing and make him such an intriguing personality. However make no mistake; Williams' does not create an impression of Fallada that allows for hero worship. This is a significant achievement and to some extent mirrors the underpinning quality of the best of Fallada's writing.
The structure and style of Williams' work is for the most part effective and informative. She has developed her biography from extensive biographical research and is obviously more than competent in her German/English translation skills. The narrative is fairly simple, following a strictly chronological path with the most important persons who had an impact on Fallada's life given appropriate attention. His family and his professional relationships are given considerable focus and it is certainly part of Williams' construction of Fallada's life that his emotional and psychological states were formed in the most part by these. For example, Williams places great store in Fallada's sense of justice having come from his father's influence, whilst his continual mental health battles are often due to those 'battles' he fought with his wives and his publishers. If one is to derive one major observation about Fallada from this biography it's that the author was literally driven to produce such vast quantities of work both because and in spite of these emotional issues that were stirred up by his family and friends.
Williams does a very decent job of describing the 'macro' level influences on Fallada's ife, such as the social environment of Wilhelmine Germany, the First World War, the economic and political crises that started and ended the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime and the aftermath of World War Two. These are significant to Fallada's story because ultimately it is his reactions to and observations on how these issues effected himself and 'ordinary' Germans that make his work so valuable. Just as Dickens is the author of the Victorian-era poor, Fallada is the author of Germans of the first half of the 20th Century, and Williams is most successful in contextualising Fallada's life and work with the wider world he lived in.
I was somewhat disappointed with the penultimate chapter that dealt with Fallada's life in Nazi Germany during the war years. I'm not sure if Williams has made enough headway with the challenge of explaining the moral complexity of Fallada's relationship with the Nazis, and his acceptance of their totalitarian regime. It is a huge question that, to be fair, would be incredibly difficult for anyone to formulate an answer to (and Fallada seems to have developed numerous differing strategies in justifying and/or condemning himself). Perhaps the focus on Fallada's sense of 'cowardice', his desire to remain connected to Germany and his 'German-ness', and pure economic need are adequate answers, perhaps not.
As for the final chapter, with its focus on Fallada's life, writing and ultimately, his death in the period immediately after World War Two, it seems somewhat perfunctory and hurried. This may (in part) reflect the availability of materials that deal with that time in Fallada's life, however I would be surprised if this is the case. The role of his second wife Ulla in his last few years seems to be under-examined, and as for Fallada's death and legacy, these are barely given more than a page of discussion. It was rather disappointing to read this biography with its general wealth of information and observations to be confronted at the end with a coda that is almost superficial and perfunctory.
In summary, Williams has written the seminal biography of Hans Fallada/Rudoph Ditzen in English. She has done a mostly excellent job of developing a construct of the author as a man in and of his times, his work, and the considerable external influences on his life. She has not shied away from presenting Fallada as a flawed man whose literary potential was perhaps unfulfilled, with appropriate literary criticism that corresponds with the biographical evidence to support her thesis. 'More Lives Than One' has some value as an examination of a German life during the most challenging period in that country's social, economic, political and cultural development in all its history, however it is at its most valuable in its depiction and analysis of one of the most significant voices to emerge from this context. A very solid bio which I would recommend to anyone who is a student of modern German history and literature, and to everyone who has enjoyed Fallada's writing.
July 10, 2014
An intense and vivid book, charting the life of the writer Rudolf Ditzen. His pen name Hans Fallada was taken from Grimm fairy tales.
Williams is an academic expert of Ditzen's life and writes in a very academic style. There is a lot of detail, but everything is explained and seems necessary. Ditzen's life was tragic, eventful, dramatic - certainly a good story!
I read his novel Alone in Berlin a couple of years ago and that lead me to this. Anyone with even the slightest interest in WW2 will enjoy Alone in Berlin and the same goes for this. A brilliant study of life in interwar Germany and how ordinary German people who did not emigrate were affected by WW2. My full blog review here: http://theselittlewords.com/2012/04/1...
Williams is an academic expert of Ditzen's life and writes in a very academic style. There is a lot of detail, but everything is explained and seems necessary. Ditzen's life was tragic, eventful, dramatic - certainly a good story!
I read his novel Alone in Berlin a couple of years ago and that lead me to this. Anyone with even the slightest interest in WW2 will enjoy Alone in Berlin and the same goes for this. A brilliant study of life in interwar Germany and how ordinary German people who did not emigrate were affected by WW2. My full blog review here: http://theselittlewords.com/2012/04/1...
Read
January 28, 2015Author Williams is no great stylist but handles the life competently. Fallada's life was a troubled one from early age. He suffered from depression regularly and was in and out of hospitals and sanitoria frequently. He also was addicted to alcohol, cocaine and worst of all morphine at different points of his life. Marriage to Suze in the late 1920s started the happiest period of his life. This ended with the start of WWII, unwilling to emigrate, he was forced to compromise to Nazi strictures in his writing something he never really came to terms with. He survived the war and for a short time became mayor of the town he lived in in northern Germany. Not a happy experience. His two greatest novels 'Little Man, What Now? and 'We All Die Alone' were the first and last books he wrote. He died at age 53 in 1947.
December 26, 2020
Towards the end I was struggling to get though this book. I have a problem with biographers who feel this need to insert their own ideological leanings at every opportunity and Williams was guilty of this partisanship. Yes, Jenny, we get that you lean left, that you're a progressive, no need to keep reminding us with all your implied approval and disapproval. Fallada, by his own estimation, was a weak man who yielded to authority, but then so do most people under under such circumstances as existed in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia. It's a rare person who makes a stand against authoritarian regimes Right or Left. And if Jenny William thinks that fascism is devilish, whilst cutting plenty of slack for communism, then I suggest she reads some of the many authors who strongly testify otherwise.
June 4, 2008
Jenny Williams gelingt es, einen hervoragenden Einblick in die Person Hans Falladas alias Rudolf Ditzen zu geben und dabei sämtliche seiner Facetten zu beleuchten: Fallada als Trinker, Morphinist, Drogenabhängiger, Gefängnisinsasse, liebevoller Vater, Ehemann. Von seiner Kindheit in einem gut-bürgerlichen Haus bis zu seinem Tode im Jahre 1947 begleitet uns die Autorin bei allen Stationen seines Leben. Dabei stellt Jenny Williams nicht nur die positiven Aspekte dar, sondern hinterfragt auch insbesondere die Person Falladas in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus.
Beleuchtet wird unter anderem Falladas Beziehung zur Ernst Rowohlt, zu seiner langjährigen Ehefrau Suse und natürlich sein Weg als Schriftsteller mit allen Höhen und Tiefen. Unbedingt empfehlenswert!
Beleuchtet wird unter anderem Falladas Beziehung zur Ernst Rowohlt, zu seiner langjährigen Ehefrau Suse und natürlich sein Weg als Schriftsteller mit allen Höhen und Tiefen. Unbedingt empfehlenswert!
February 4, 2022
I became interested in Hans Fallada - the pen name of Rudolf Ditzen - after reading 'Alone in Berlin' soon after it was republished in the UK in 2010. This biography is painstaking and has tried to avoid myth and mystification (some from Ditzen himself) and go back to original sources. It is very helpful in separating the major novels of Ditzen from the pot boilers, feeble efforts to make a living under the Nazis, and lying autobiographical essays. Broadly speaking, he was unable to write what he could do best under Hitler because his main strength, the portrayal of individuals in a society that put them under extreme stress would have resulted in his execution. He hated the Nazis but was unable to defy them and so was restricted to the timescale of the Weimar republic - they could endorse his mordant criticism of the pressures put on Germans after the First World War, but he could not (except when forced by Goebbels) show Hitler to be the solution. His life makes for very interesting reading; it has many sensational aspects - shooting his friend in a suicide pact, drug and alcohol addiction, theft and prison. It was fortunate that he got the chance to write 'Alone in Berlin' and express his feelings about the Nazi regime before his health finally collapsed.
February 14, 2025
I have read most of Hans Fallada's major novels. I couldn't get through A Small Circus, and I haven't tackled Wolf Among Wolves yet, but I have a good amount of knowledge concerning his novels. Rudolf Ditzen (Hans Fallada was his pen name.) lived (1883-1947) in tumultuous times. He was born just twelve years after the German Empire under Wilhelm I of Prussia (1871) was born. The area existed of 39 different sovereigns prior to empire forming. Ditzen and a friend made a suicide pact disguised as a duel when he was 28. His friend missed. Ditzen did not. He was acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. This was one of the many times he was institutionalized for depression and morphine addiction. He was in his early 30s when WWI broke out his insanity and drug abuse kept him out of the fighting. In his early 40s he lived through the chaos of the Weimar Republic and then through the Nazi period at 50. He had to skirt the dictates of the Nazi in order to find publishers. In my opinion, he was a waste of a man except for when he was writing.
January 2, 2022
Although this author is not nearly as polished as Walter Isaacson, for example, she did construct a worthy and useful biography of an important German author who is not well-known in the English-speaking world. I have read his major novels in English translation: Alone in Berlin, Wolf Among Wolves, The Drinker, and What Now, Little Man? They are all well worth reading. As is this biography, despite what seems to be some attempts to sanitize the first year or so of Russian occupation after the end of WW2.
January 17, 2018
I really enjoyed this book. I already knew the story of Hans Fallad, mostly through his, what I would call, autobiographical fiction. Jenny Williams has presented a very readable biography of Hans as writer, and ordinary man trying to make his way through extraordinary times. Whenever I read a book like this I find myself asking, what would I have done if I were faced with these circumstances.
July 13, 2021
Brisk run through of an often bizarre life. Offers a fascinating alternative view of living in Germany from the turn of the century until the end of World War 2. Krankes volk.
September 16, 2021
Scholarly cataloguing of events and publications.
March 31, 2022
A wee bit dry at times, but an interesting read nonetheless. What a life!
October 31, 2025
Sehr gut geschriebene Biografie. Flüssig lesbar, meines Erachtens gut recherchiert. Liest sich sehr gut.
August 31, 2012
This is a very well written and comprehensive biography of an Author who I enjoy reading very much. I think that now I know what a selfish and unsympathetic character he was I may view his writing in a slightly different light.
October 24, 2014
Amazing story of a troublesome life.
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