20 Facts About Hans Fallada

Hans Fallada's works belong predominantly to the New Objectivity literary style, a style associated with an emotionless reportage approach, with precision of detail, and a veneration for 'the fact'.

In 1899, when Hans Fallada was 6, his father relocated the family to Berlin following the first of several promotions he would receive.

Hans Fallada had a very difficult time upon first entering school in 1901.

Hans Fallada's lifelong drug problems were born of the pain-killing medications he was taking as the result of his injuries.

Hans Fallada was so distraught that he picked up Dietrich's gun and shot himself in the chest, but somehow survived.

Shortly after the publication of Anton und Gerda Hans Fallada reported to prison in Greifswald to serve a 6-month sentence for stealing grain from his employer and selling it to support his drug habit.

Less than 3 years later, in 1926, Hans Fallada again found himself imprisoned as a result of a drug and alcohol-fueled string of thefts from employers.

Hans Fallada married Anna "Suse" Issel in 1929 and maintained a string of respectable jobs in journalism, working for newspapers and eventually for the publisher of his novels, Rowohlt.

Meanwhile, as the careers, and in some cases the lives, of many of Hans Fallada's contemporaries were rapidly drawing to a halt, he began to draw some additional scrutiny from the government in the form of denunciations of his work by Nazi authors and publications, who noted that he had not joined the Party.

Meanwhile, the official campaign against Hans Fallada was beginning to take a toll on the sales of his books, landing him in financial straits that precipitated another nervous breakdown in 1934.

In September 1935 Hans Fallada was officially declared an "undesirable author", a designation that banned his work from being translated and published abroad.

Hans Fallada wrote several different versions before eventually capitulating under the pressure of both Goebbels and his depleted finances.

Hans Fallada dedicated himself to writing children's stories and other non-political material suitable for the sensitive times.

Hans Fallada spent the brief remainder of his life in and out of hospitals and wards.

Hans Fallada wrote Jeder stirbt fur sich allein between September and November 1946, whilst in a mental institution.

Hans Fallada told his family that he had written "a great novel".

Hans Fallada died just weeks before the publication of this final novel.

Hans Fallada was buried in Pankow, a borough of Berlin, but was later moved to Carwitz where he had lived from 1933 till 1944.

Hans Fallada remained a popular writer in Germany after his death.

Hans Fallada expressed harsh condemnation for writers like Fallada who, though opponents of Nazism, made concessions which compromised their work.