Every Man Dies Alone

Described by Primo Levi as "the greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis", Every Man Dies Alone was first published in Germany in 1947. An English translation is now set to appear in March of this year. The book was written by Hans Fallada, himself a priminent German writer prior to the war, who was incarcerated by the Nazis in an insane asylum and managed to write books against the Nazis under various covers. Although fictional, it is based on a true story. It tells the story of a couple who, after the death of their son on the front, organize a complex clandestine campaign of resistance to the Reich involving among other things the distribution of anti-Nazi prospectuses. The couple is ultimately executed after being caught by the Gestapo. In that, their fate is not dissimilar to that which awaited the members of the White Rose group in Munich, who were also caught and killed. Typically, the accused would have faced Roland Freisler, chief justice of the People's Court in Berlin, in what were pure show trials designed to humiliate them. Interestingly, some of the Freisler trials have been filmed and provide a fascinating testimony of the absolute persecution of resistance by a "law" hardly worthy of that name.