Hans Fallada - Death and Legacy

Death and Legacy

At the time of Fallada's death in February 1947, he had recently completed Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every Man Dies Alone), an anti-fascist novel based on the true story of a German couple, Otto and Elise Hampel, who were executed for producing and distributing anti-fascist material in Berlin during the war. According to Jenny Williams, he wrote the book in a "white heat"—a mere 24 days. He died just weeks before its publication. Fallada was buried in Pankow, a borough of Berlin, but was later moved to Carwitz where he had lived from 1933 till 1944.

After Fallada's death, because of possible neglect and continuing addiction on the part of his second wife and sole heir, many of his unpublished works were lost or sold.

Fallada remained a popular writer in Germany after his death. But, although Little Man, What Now? had been a great success in the United States and the UK, outside of Germany Fallada faded into obscurity for decades, until American publisher Melville House Publishing reissued several Fallada titles, beginning in 2009 with Little Man, What Now?, The Drinker, and Every Man Dies Alone. Melville House licensed its edition and translation of Every Man Dies Alone to Penguin Classics in the UK, which published his last book as Alone in Berlin. In 2010, Melville House released Wolf Among Wolves in its first unexpurgated English translation.

Other German writers who had quit the country when Hitler rose to power felt disgust for those such as Fallada who had remained, compromising their work under the Nazi regime. Most notable of these critics was Fallada's contemporary Thomas Mann, who had fled Nazi repression early on and lived abroad. He expressed harsh condemnation for writers like Fallada, who though opponents of Nazism made concessions which compromised their work. “It may be superstitious belief, but in my eyes, any books which could be printed at all in Germany between 1933 and 1945 are worse than worthless and not objects one wishes to touch. A stench of blood and shame attaches to them. They should all be pulped.”

The Hans Fallada Prize, a literary prize awarded by the city of Neumünster, was named after the author.