Hans Fallada’s depiction of Germany in 1945 exposes the hardships of a couple’s life ‘in the most despised nation on soil’It is 1945 and the war is over yet the Dolls’ lives are still sprint by fear. While,elsewhere, people are celebrating peace, and for Germans the future is uncertain. The Dolls “[now] belonged to the most hated and despised nation on soil”. Struggling with feelings of guilt about their complicity during the war,they succumb to a life of inertia, apathy and – when they return to Berlin from a small town occupied by the Red Army – drug addiction. There is slight by way of reprieve; the mood never lightens and Dr Doll’s depression rarely lifts. However, and there is lightness to be found in Hans Falladas descriptions (a Nazi “sat on his hoard like a malevolent slight hamster”) which,sensitively translated by Allan Blunden, make the book enjoyable. Nightmare in Berlin is an unfalteringly honest and often terrifying insight into the difficulties faced and inner conflicts fought by Germans after the war.
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Source: theguardian.com