Every Man Dies Alone (82 page)

All references to the Bible are to the King James Version.

The extant files in the cases of the Hampels and Alfred Schmidt are held by the “Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR” of the Federal Archive in Lichterfelde, Berlin. The files on the Hampels are NJ36/2, NJ36/3, NJ36/4, and ZC12614; the files on Schmidt are NJ1705/1, NJ1705/2, NJ1705/4, and NJ5110/1.

Manfred Kuhnke’s study of the factual Hampels and the fictional Quangels is
Die Hampels und die Quangels: Authentisches und Erfundenes in Hans Falladas letztem Roman
. Neubrandenburg: Literaturzentrum Neubrandenburg, 2001.

Geoff Wilkes
University of Queensland
Brisbane, Australia

THE TRUE STORY BEHIND
EVERY MAN DIES ALONE

Every Man Dies Alone
is based upon the case of Elise and Otto Hampel, a poorly educated working-class couple living in Berlin with no history, prior to this case, of political activity. After Elise’s brother was killed early in the war, the couple commenced a nearly three-year propaganda campaign that baffled—and enraged—the Berlin police, who eventually handed the case over to the Gestapo. The Hampels’ campaign consisted, quite simply, of leaving hundreds of postcards calling for civil disobedience and workplace sabotage all over Berlin. They were particularly insistent in urging people not to give to the Winter Fund, which was essentially a false-front charity the Nazis pressured citizens to contribute to, but which was actually used to fund the war.

Many of the cards were quickly turned in to police, but the Hampels blanketed the city so thoroughly, and eluded capture so successfully, that the Gestapo and other units of the Nazi police forces came to assume that they were dealing with a large, sophisticated underground resistance.

Hans Fallada was given their Gestapo file by Johannes R. Becher, a poet friend of his who had become what was essentially the cultural minister in the post-war government set up by the Soviets in Eastern Germany. Fallada had barely survived the war after a long stint in a Nazi insane asylum (in most instances, a death sentence), which, upon his release, had in turn contributed to a relapse of his drug and alcohol problems. At war’s end he was a shattered man, and in an effort to get him back on his feet, Becher gave him the Hampels’ Gestapo file and suggested he use it as the basis of a novel. Fallada wrote the book in 24 days, but did not live to see its publication.

What follows includes material from the Gestapo file given to Hans Fallada by Johannes Becher. It includes documents from the initial police investigation a well as from the Gestapo’s own investigation. It was the main basis for the case against Elise and Otto Hampel presented in the People’s Court—where the Nazis held their show trials—before the President of the Court, Roland Freisler. The Hampels were found guilty and sentenced to death, and executed by beheading in Plotenzee Prison in March, 1943.

1. The Gestapo report of a search of the Hampels’ apartment. Their final report documented the entire case from start to finish, including the investigation of not only the Hampels but their family, friends, and neighbors, and people at Otto Hampel’s employer (including a supervisor who seems to have been on the Gestapo payroll, and who denounced Hampel).

2. The investigation begins: One of the first police reports on the case, which notes, “In the last week, there have been more reports of anti-Nazi propaganda.”

3. A police report citing an eyewitness account of a man dropping a card, noting it was left in the stairwell of a residential building. A second eyewitness account would also describe a man, but the two descriptions were so different police had to discount them.

4. A police report detailing the growing list of cards turned in so far, including the dates and locations of the findings.

“Hitler’s regime will bring us no peace!”

5. A sampling of cards turned in to the police. The cards included numerous misspellings and grammatical errors, and were clearly laboriously written by someone with little education. Messages were often somewhat disjointed, too, with disconnected phrases such as “free press!” thrown in.

“Free Press! Why suffer war and death for the Hitler plutocracy?”

“Hitler’s war is the worker’s death!”

“German people wake up!”