Hans Fallada

Hans Fallada (* 21 July 1893 in Greifswald as Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen; † 5 February 1947 in Berlin) was a German writer.

With the publication of his first novel Der junge Goedeschal (1920), Rudolf Ditzen used the pseudonym Hans Fallada for the first time as an author. In 1931, the writer turned to socially critical themes with Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben. From then on, his novels were characterised by an objective, sober style, vivid milieu studies and convincing characterisation. His novel Kleiner Mann - was nun?, first published in 1932, became a worldwide success, as did his later novels Wolf unter Wölfen, Jeder stirbt für sich allein and the posthumously published novel Der Trinker. In literary history, Hans Fallada's novels are categorised as New Objectivity.

Last years and death
After his divorce, Fallada lived with 23-year-old Ursula Losch (“Ulla”, 1921–1958) in the small Mecklenburg town of Feldberg (Feldberger Seenlandschaft). The wealthy young widow had moved there with her mother and her young daughter (*1939) after the death of her husband Kurt Losch and had met Fallada in the summer of 1944.[28] The initially friendly relationship, which soon turned into a love affair, was problematic from the start. Both had survived the war but suffered psychologically. Like Hans Fallada twenty years earlier, Ulla was addicted to morphine; Fallada had also been an alcoholic for years.[29]

“It was an irony of fate that Ditzen survived both world wars, but came into contact with morphine in the last months of the war. In January 1945 he had not touched drugs for twenty years and was not aware of any danger.”

- Jenny Williams: More Life Than One - Hans Fallada - Biography
Hans Fallada and Ursula Losch married on February 1, 1945 and initially lived in the young widow's house in Feldberg.

After the defeat in World War II, Germany was divided into occupation zones by the Allies in 1945; Mecklenburg belonged to the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) from 1945 to 1949, which was controlled by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD). The SMAD initially established effective municipal administrations. Only citizens of the former German Reich who had not previously worked in the state apparatus of the shattered Nazi state or been members of the previously state-supporting National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) were appointed as mayors of cities and municipalities. Fallada was one of these citizens; the SMAD appointed him mayor of Feldberg for a short time.

After Fallada left office as mayor, he and his wife moved to Berlin and worked there for the Tägliche Rundschau at the request of Johannes R. Becher. Becher's support enabled Fallada to live together with prominent cultural figures - like Becher himself in the Majakowskiring (the "little town") - in the preferred Majakowskiweg, which was sealed off from the outside world. The isolation he experienced there was reflected in Fallada's novel The Alpdruck.[31] In 1994, the Majakowskiweg was renamed Rudolf-Ditzen-Weg in his honor.

Berlin memorial plaque on the house at Rudolf-Ditzen-Weg 19 in Berlin-Niederschönhausen
In 1946, Fallada's morphine consumption escalated. His wife, who was also addicted, wrote a letter to fellow poet and doctor Gottfried Benn asking for morphine.[32] In January 1946, Fallada went to a private clinic in Neu-Westend, his wife followed him two weeks later; both were released in March. On May 1, Hans Fallada wanted to kill himself; however, his neighbor Johannes R. Becher was able to prevent this. In a letter, Fallada's wife wrote: "We took the morphine so regularly that hardly any periods of abstinence or symptoms of abstinence occurred."[32] She owed Becher 3,000 marks because of her drug use. Another stay in the Niederschönhausen auxiliary hospital followed.

In December 1946, Fallada was admitted to the mental hospital at the Berlin Charité.[33] Within a month, in poor physical condition, he wrote the novel Jeder stirbt für sich allein.

At his wife's request, Fallada was transferred to the Pankow auxiliary hospital in Berlin-Niederschönhausen on January 12, 1947, where a joint detoxification treatment was planned. On February 5, 1947, a doctor who wanted to go home early gave her the nightly sleeping pills for Fallada and asked her to give them to him. She made a mistake in the dosage and gave him too much of it; Fallada died from it. His death certificate stated "death from heart failure."[34]

Until 1981, Fallada was buried in an honorary grave in the Pankow III cemetery. At Anna Ditzen's instigation, he was reburied in the old cemetery in Carwitz.

Source: de.wikipedia.org