Nightmare in Berlin

Nightmare in Berlin by Hans Fallada
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Firstly I am amused a bit with discovery of H.Fallada last books in English speaking world. I read the last book written by him - Every man dies alone - some 65 years ago (in Polish). Forgive me using a translation of original version of the title, but I find it much better.
Strange thing was, that this book had to wait 60 years for discovery by English speaking world.
I suppose the main obstacle was, that the book was written on suggestion and with great support of Johannes Becher, a devoted communist, Culture Minister in German Democratic Republic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johanne...
He is presented in Nightmare in Berlin as Granzow.
Secondly... I wondered why Nightmare in Berlin was not translated into Polish around same time as Every man dies alone.
My guess is - because it is not good book, it is nowhere near other books of this author.
One of reviews in German press at the time of publishing reads: "Thinly disguised biography difficult to read with any pleasure".
Hans Fallada himself, in the Introduction, makes some sort of apologies: "A medical report, then, and not a work of art - I am sorry to say".
I read this book with some sort of disbelief - it was not Fallada whom I know, although I have to admit some parts of the book were unmistakably in his style.
I clearly saw 3 streams of the story.
1. Woes over a state of German society. Cruel discovery, that actually all people have been corrupted by 12 years of Nazi rule and that this corruption remained after the end of the war.
There is a lot of long deliberations of general nature and few pitiful cases described in detail.
2. Main character dr Doll's and his young wife Alma's fight for survival. There I find some of Fallada's style.
3. Addiction to morphine - it reminds me the best scenes The Drunkard. Here I can see that Fallada knows what he is writing about.
Additional point - some efforts to please his benefactor - minister Becher and his Soviet principals. In opening chapter Dr Doll and his young wife are full of trust and sympathy towards Soviet liberators.
I strongly doubt if anybody in Germany shared this attitude. Actually Fallada's first wife Anna Ditzen was able to hide the 11-year old Lore from the Soviet soldiers, but she herself was raped and injured severely enough that she had to be hospitalised. And it happened in the same town where H. Fallada lived with his young wife.
Summarizing my personal reception of this book - I read it with some affection towards an old friend, who honestly tells me about his terrible experience. But if it were someone else I would have put this book away after first 2 chapters.


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