Alone in Berlin

by Hans Fallada

the Quangels were like most people: they believed what they hoped.

Believe what you hope

When the deputy inspector – in spite of his firm conviction that Enno Kluge was not the author nor the distributor of the postcards – when, even so, he intimated to Inspector Escherich that Kluge was probably the distributor of these writings, he did so because a wise inferior should never try to second-guess his superior. Against Kluge, there was a firm charge from the doctor’s receptionist, Fräulein Kiesow, and whether this had substance or not, that was something the inspector could determine for himself. If it had substance, then the deputy was a capable man, assured of the future benevolence of the inspector. If it remained unsubstantiated, then it merely showed that the inspector was wiser than the deputy, and the determination of this margin of wisdom on the part of the superior can be more useful to the inferior than any bravura of his own.

Shrewd operator

but it was a start, a sniff of a lead – and he was able to show Prall that he was doing something, not just sitting on his hands. That was all his superiors really cared about: something had to be done, even if it was the wrong thing, as the whole pursuit of Kluge was wrong.

Something must be done

Everyone is guilty. You just need to probe for long enough, and you’ll find something.

Everyone is guilty

They don’t talk themselves, lest their charges should. They don’t want to listen to any complaints; there’s nothing they can do about them anyway. Everything here takes its rigid course. They are cogs in a machine, iron cogs, steel cogs. If an iron cog happened to soften, it would have to be replaced, and the cogs don’t want to be replaced – they want to be just the way they are.