Rating: 5 out of 5

I bought this after a search for a Berlin related novel to read during my recent visit to Berlin. I read the first half in Berlin, and the second half back in the UK and the setting of me made little difference to this excellent book. It is sad, upsetting, even harrowing in places but it feels like all the harsh, and tough stuff is necessary and in keeping with the era. It is set around the time of the Second World War, a time when the Gestapo were busy with objectors and dissidents. The main characters in the story and well defined with depth and warmth and I was engaged with them, wanting to find out what happened next (in fact I almost failed to get off the train I was so desperate to continue reading). Not for the faint hearted but definitely worth taking the time to read.

Highlighted passages:

‘Just think, Quangel, first Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia and Austria, and now Poland and France - we’re going to be the richest country on earth! What do a couple of hundred thousand dead matter! We’re rich!’

Conviviality, booze, cheerful relaxation after the heavy effort of torturing and putting to death their fellow men.

maybe it was just that ink stain that was still tormenting me!’

As it was, we all acted alone, we were caught alone, and every one of us will have to die alone. But that doesn’t mean that we are alone, Quangel, or that our deaths will be in vain. Nothing in this world is done in vain, and since we are fighting for justice against brutality, we are bound to prevail in the end.’

You want to remain brave and strong; everything that keeps you brave and strong is good, just as everything that makes you weak and doubtful, such as brooding, is bad.

Fallada wrote the book in twenty-four days, but did not live to see its publication.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account