Nightmare in Berlin

By Hans Fallada
Translated by Allan Blunden

“Fallada describes Berlin as an almost post-apocalyptic city dominated by death, drugs, apathy, and the almost blackly comic pettiness of the human survival instinct. This translation of this compelling novel enables a new audience to experience Fallada’s fascinating and conflicted perspective.”—Booklist

“In this splendid novel, Fallada portrays the despondency and apathy of the German people in this strange period. The last months of the war are described with masterly skill, as well as the subsequent capitulation, the arrival of the Russian troops, the way in which the middle class, the “bourgeoisie” must adapt to this new environment, and the moral decline of the population.”—Zwiebelfisch

“Nightmare in Berlin is the symbol for everything that happened after the end of the war.”—Der Tagesspiegel

Late April, 1945. The war is over, yet Dr. Doll, a loner and ‘moderate pessimist’, lives in constant fear. By night, he is haunted by nightmarish images of the bombsite in which he is trapped―he, and the rest of Germany. More than anything, he wishes to vanquish the demon of collective guilt, but he is unable to right any wrongs, especially in his position as mayor of a small town in north-east Germany that has been occupied by the Red Army.

Dr. Doll flees for Berlin, where he finds escape in a morphine addiction: each dose is a ‘small death’. He tries to make his way in the chaos of a city torn apart by war, accompanied by his young wife, who shares his addiction. Fighting to save two lives, he tentatively begins to believe in a better future.

Nightmare in Berlin captures the demoralized and desperate atmosphere of post-war Germany in a way that has never been matched or surpassed.

Paperback
288 pages
Scribe US, 2017
Originally published in 1947
6 x 1 x 8.2 inches
ISBN 9781925321197
Historical Fiction