Nightmare in Berlin (34 page)
Life goes on, and they would outlive these times, those who had been spared by the grace of God, the survivors. Life goes on, always, even beneath the ruins. The ruins are of no account; what counts is life â the life in a blade of grass in the middle of the city, in amongst a thousand lumps of shattered masonry. Life goes on, always.
And maybe people will learn something, after all. Learn from their suffering, their tears, their blood. Learn reluctantly, hesitantly, or with relish. Learn that things have to change, that we have to learn to think differently â¦
Doll, at any rate, was determined to be part of this learning process. He saw his path laid out before him, the next steps he had to take, and they meant work, work, and more work. Beyond these first steps, the darkness began again, the darkness that obscures the future for every German today; but he preferred not to think about that. In the last few years, people had learned so well how to live in the moment, from one day to the next: why should that lesson not be put to good use today?
Just get on with life and do your job
: that should be his watchword now.
A comforting late-evening breeze was wafting through the treetops. The breath of the big wide world was blowing upon him, the little man. He leaned against one of the trees for a while, listening to the wind whispering in the branches above. It was nothing, just the movement of air making the leaves rustle like that. Nothing. No more than that. But it sufficed. In the last few years he had never had time to stand under a tree and listen to its whisperings. Now he had time, for peace had come again â peace!
Know this in your heart, my friend: you are done with murdering and killing. Lay down your arms â peace has finally come!
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
1893
21 July: Rudolf Ditzen is born in Greifswald, the third child of Wilhelm and Elisabeth Ditzen.
1899
His father, a county court magistrate, is appointed a counsellor in the Court of Appeal in Berlin. The family moves to Berlin.
1909
His father is appointed to the Imperial Supreme Court in Leipzig. The family moves to Leipzig; he suffers a serious bicycle accident.
1911
Attends the grammar school in Rudolstadt, and is seriously injured in a suicide pact â made to look like a duel gone wrong â in which his friend Hanns Dietrich von Necker is killed.
1912
He is committed to Tannenfeld sanatorium in Saxony.
1913
Gets a job as an estate worker in Posterstein, Thuringia.
1914
Enlists as a volunteer in the German army, but is discharged a few days later as unfit for military service.
1915
Secures a position as deputy steward on the Heydebreck estate in Eastern Pomerania (until March 1916).
1916
Takes a job with the Chamber of Agriculture in Stettin, then joins the staff of a seed potato company in Berlin.
1919
He is re-admitted to Tannenfeld in August 1919, but soon leaves for Carlsfeld sanatorium in Brehna to be treated for drug addiction.
1920
Literary debut with the semi-autobiographical novel
Der junge Goedeschal
[âYoung Goedeschal']; thereafter he adopts the pseudonym Hans Fallada. In November he takes a job as a bookkeeper on the Marzdorf estate in West Prussia (now Poland).
1921
Leaves Marzdorf in January. For the second half of the year he works as a bookkeeper on an estate near Doberan in Mecklenburg.
1922
From June to October he works as a bookkeeper on the Neuschönfeld estate near Bunzlau in Silesia (now Poland). Arrested in October for trading the estate's grain on the black market, he returns to Marzdorf for the last two months of the year.
1923
Publication of the novel
Anton und Gerda
. From the spring until October he is employed as a bookkeeper on the Radach estate near Drossen. In July he is sentenced to six months' imprisonment for embezzlement (deferred until 1924).
1924
Imprisoned in Greifswald from June to early November.
1925
Publication of three essays on social and political issues of the day in the liberal journal
Das Tage-Buch
. In the spring he goes to work as a bookkeeper on the Lübgust estate near Neustettin in Pomerania (now Poland); leaves Lübgust in July and takes a new job as senior bookkeeper on the Neuhaus estate near Lütjenburg in Schleswig-Holstein; in September he is caught stealing money from his employers again.
1926
Sentenced to two-and-a-half years in Neumünster prison for embezzlement.
1928
Earns a living addressing envelopes in Hamburg, joins the SPD (Social Democratic Party), and gets engaged to Anna âSuse' Issel.
1929
Gets a job selling advertising space and reporting on local news for the
General-Anzeiger
in Neumünster; 5 April: marriage to Anna Issel; reports on the trial of the
Landvolk
movement agitators.
1930
Secures a position with Rowohlt Verlag; birth of son Ulrich.
1931
Publication of
Bauern, Bonzen, und Bomben
[âA Small Circus']; moves to Neuenhagen near Berlin.
1932
Kleiner Mann
â
was nun?
[âLittle Man â What Now?'] is published; he becomes a freelance writer. Moves to Berkenbrück in November.
1933
He is held in jail for eleven days after being denounced to the authorities; buys a house and smallholding in Carwitz near Feldberg; birth of daughter Lore.
1934
â
35
Publication of
Wer einmal aus dem Blechnapf frisst
[âOnce a Jailbird'],
Wir hatten mal ein Kind
[âOnce We Had a Child'], and
Das Märchen vom Stadtschreiber, der aufs Land flog
[âSparrow Farm'].
1936
Publication of
Altes Herz geht auf die Reise
[âOld Heart Goes on a Journey'] and
Hoppelpoppel, wo bist du?
[âHoppelpoppel, Where Are You?'].
1937
Publication of
Wolf unter Wölfen
[âWolf Among Wolves'].
1938
Publication of
Der eiserne Gustav
[âIron Gustav'] and
Geschichten aus der Murkelei
[âStories from a Childhood'].
1940
Publication of
Kleiner Mann, grosser Mann â alles vertauscht
[âLittle Man, Big Man
â
Roles Reversed'] and
Der ungeliebte Mann
[âThe Unloved Man']; birth of son Achim.
1941
Publication of
Damals bei uns daheim
[âOur Home in Days Gone By'],
Die Stunde eh' du schlafen gehst
[âBefore You Go to Sleep'], and
Der mutige Buchhändler
[âThe Brave Bookseller'] (also published under the title
Die Abenteuer des Werner Quabs
).
1942
Publication of
Ein Mann will nach oben
(alternative title:
Ein Mann will hinauf
) [âA Man Wants to Get On'] and
Zwei zarte Lämmchen weiss wie Schnee
[âTwo Tender Lambs White as Snow'].
1943
Publication of
Heute bei uns zu Haus
[âOur Home Today'] and
Der Jungherr von Strammin
(alternative title:
Junger Herr ganz gross
) [âThe Master of Strammin']; at the invitation of the Wehrmacht, he undertakes fact-finding tours of the annexed territories of Czechoslovakia and occupied France as a major in the Reich Labour Service; after Rowohlt Verlag is closed down by the Nazis and his general publishing agreement is cancelled, Fallada is left without any financial security.
1944
5 July: divorced from Anna Ditzen; during an argument he fires a shot from his pistol, and is committed to the Neustrelitz-Strelitz psychiatric prison, where the so-called
Drinker
manuscript with the 1944 prison diary is written (first published in 2009 under the title
In meinem fremden Land
[âA Stranger in My Own Country']); following his release he writes
Fridolin der freche Dachs
[âThat Rascal, Fridolin'].
1945
Marriage in Berlin to the 22-year-old Ursula âUlla' Losch, who also has a history of morphine addiction; because of the ceaseless air raids they leave Ulla's apartment in Meraner Strasse (BerlinâSchöneberg) and move out to her wooden chalet in Klinkecken, on the outskirts of Feldberg; when the war ends, Fallada is made mayor of Feldberg by the occupying Red Army; in August the couple suffer a breakdown and are hospitalised; they return to their apartment in BerlinâSchöneberg, which is partly destroyed, partly occupied by others; first meeting with Johannes R. Becher, through whom he gets commissions to write pieces for the
Tägliche Rundschau
, and who arranges for him to move into a spacious house with a garden and garage in Eisenmengerweg (in the Pankow-Niederschönhausen district of Berlin), Fallada's last place of residence.
1946
Repeated admissions to hospital, including a spell in a private temporary infirmary specializing in female venereal diseases at 10 Marthastrasse, where Fallada is the only male patient; works on
Der Trinker
[âThe Drinker'] (published in a reconstructed version in 1950/1953),
Nightmare in Berlin
(published in 1947), and
Alone in Berlin
(first published in 1947, although the book did not appear in its original version until 2011).
1947
5 February: Fallada dies in Berlin; he is cremated in a cemetery in Pankow, and his ashes are later moved to the cemetery in Carwitz at the instigation of Anna Ditzen.
EDITORIAL NOTE
The text of this edition is based on Volume 7 of the
Ausgewählte Werke in Einzelausgaben
[âSelected Works'], edited by Günter Caspar, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin and Weimar, 2nd edition, 1988. The 1988 text was in turn based on the first edition (Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, 1947), which contained two obvious slips that Caspar corrected: at the end of Chapter 8 the nurse talks of â16 February 1943', although she clearly means â1944', as mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 7. And towards the end of Chapter 12 there are two references to the âBig Four', although this clearly refers back to Chapter 1 and the âBig Three'. While preparing the new edition, Caspar also consulted Fallada's correspondence, the manuscripts, and other material relating to the novel, when the author's papers were still in the possession of the then copyright owner, Emma D. Hey (Braunschweig). Some of the material is now kept in the Hans Fallada Archive (Neubrandenburg/Carwitz), but the location of the manuscripts and typescripts, as well as the proofs for
Nightmare in Berlin
, is today unknown.
Günter Caspar assumed that Hans Fallada had read the proofs in full. But letters kept in the Aufbau company archive cast doubt on this. Based on three such letters (dated 17, 24, and 27 November 1946), it is safe to assume that he read âthe first 20 page proofs of
Nightmare
' as well as âp. 21 to 127' (âpage proofs 61 to 100 are missing'), and then returned them to his publisher (the first edition ran to 236 printed pages). The correspondence of the publishing director Kurt Wilhelm also contains a letter of 31 December 1946, in which he laments the fact that âat the time of writing' he has still not received the corrected proofs back from Fallada. He reverts to the matter on 27 January: âOur production department is still waiting for your proof corrections for
Nightmare
, and needs them very urgently now. Is it not possible for you to send me your copy of the proofs through an intermediary, as soon as possible after you receive this letter?' Wilhelm never received a reply to this request. Fallada died on 5 February 1947, in Berlin's Charité hospital.
As far as the preparation of the manuscript is concerned, it is clear from the correspondence that Fallada revised the text several times. On 27 September 1946, he wrote: âDear Mr. Wilhelm, with this letter my wife is bringing you the finished manuscript of my novel
Nightmare in Berlin
â unfortunately I am unable to come myself, owing to a bad attack of rheumatoid arthritis. / As you will see from a quick look through the copy, I have put a great deal of additional work into this novel, and I doubt if there is a single page that hasn't been revised, but the main thing is that I have cut the text substantially, probably by as much as a quarter. I hope that the book in its present definitive form is to your liking. [â¦] / Before the manuscript goes to print, I would like to look through it myself one more time, since all too often typing mistakes creep in that distort the meaning. I would also like to read the galley proofs myself.'
In October, further specific changes were agreed in an exchange of letters and sent on to Wilhelm by Fallada. The latter also expressed detailed views on the format and design of the book, took it upon himself to organise serialisation in the
Frankfurter Rundschau
, and announced his intention of placing the novel with three of his foreign publishers: Gyldendal in Copenhagen, Putnam in London, and Hökerberg in Stockholm: âIt would be really nice if you were the first German publisher able to announce the publication of a German book in a foreign country.'
What emerges clearly from all this is that even if Fallada was unable to deliver a full set of corrected proofs to his publisher before his death, he had meticulously prepared the text of
Nightmare in Berlin
for publication.