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Hans Fallada has written an astonishing but ultimately tragic novel of German resistance to Nazism and the ever formidable Third Reich inferno, and I was stunned to learn it took something like 60 years for it's first English publication, and was penned in less than a month. Also Fallada could have escaped Germany; as a man whose books had been banned by the Nazis, and who had spent time in prison and psychiatric institutions as a result of a drug addiction, he should have got out. But if his inability to tear himself away from his homeland took a fearsome personal toll, it also enabled him to convey with chilling precision the texture of life under fascism, the way that fear enters into every transaction and poisons every relationship. Alone in Berlin is a testament to the darkest days the 20th century had to offer, from beginning to end the book in drenched in fear, it grips hold, tight, and makes it perfectly clear, this is how it was, this was actually happening. But for a husband and wife living through WW2 in Berlin they refuse to be intimidated by a despicable regime, and after losing their son in battle, set out discreetly to make their own personal feelings well known to a greater audience, whilst creating wrath within the Gestapo.

Otto and Anna Quangel are a hard working couple, laborious, unsociable, thrifty to the point of stinginess, and originally not hostile to the National Socialists. existing in a cold, shabby and colourless city. That changes when their beloved son, Ottochen, is killed while fighting in France. Otto, a foreman in a furniture factory that soon will be turned over to making coffins, is provoked into resistance. He spends his Sundays writing anonymous postcards attacking Hitler, before dropping them in the stairwells of city buildings. "Mother Don't give to the Winter Relief Fund! - Work as slowly as you can! - Put sand in the machines! - Every stroke of work not done will shorten the war!". This silent mission of defiance will lead a furious SS To put inspector Escherich on the case, with the added pressure of getting immediate results. Unfortunately for him It doesn't happen, always turning up a blind ally, with no traces leading to the suspect known as 'Hobgoblin'. The postcard campaign would march on and on, Otto would grow in both strength and confidence, before a spot of bad luck sends the walls crashing down around them. Finally witnessing the brutal penal code of Nazi Germany.

But the Quangels only make up part of the story, the novel reaches out far deeper than just it's main theme. There are traces of unruly life scattered everywhere. Brawling, delirium tremens, clinics and drying-out establishments, country idylls, thieves, whores, blackmail, drugs, Nazi veterans in a haze of drink, struggling ordinary folk trying to put food on the table. Vivid is the world of sub-proletarian swindling that exploits and is exploited by the Nazis. It is remarkable that Fallada, just months before his death, could compose a long novel that, after an overcrowded beginning, advances so confidently to its conclusion. The Quangels neighbours all have considerable time spent on them during the first third, helping to paint a picture of just what life was like under such evil rule. In fact there are huge chunks of the novel where Anna and Otto disappear completely, switching attention to the inner workings of the Gestapo and the fearful people who happen to have a run-ins with them. Many would by chance find one of the postcards, and be immediately struck with foreboding and dread for handling them.

I have not always taken to huge expansive novels in the past, Alone in Berlin has put my faith back in them. It was superbly written (translation by Michael Hofmann, top marks) never boring, seemed to fly by in a flash, and deserves all the praise it can get. The fact it was also exhaustingly draining on my soul, harrowing and intensely sad, doesn't stop it being up there with the best I have ever read. Even with the chaos of war around, standing face to face with the horror show of fascist Nazism, for some at least, courage and integrity can still exist, and never be broken. Through all the darkness that proceeds it, the novel still manages to end with a flickering light of hope. And Christ, does it ever need it."