VThere is a lot to read about and about Hans Fallada. In novels such as “Little Man – What Now?” or “Who Will Eat From a Tin Bowl” he described the economic and political crises of his time like no other from the defenseless but humane perspective of the little man. His life, which was shattered from an early age by alcohol and drugs, gives enough reason for biographical portraits, theater productions and documentaries. And there are always new editions of his books.

A volume of previously unpublished Fallada letters from two trips to occupied France, edited by Carsten Gansel, is now available. In May 1943, the writer had accepted an order from the Reich Labor Service (RAD), which obliged him to visit auxiliary construction troops stationed in France for six months and to keep a travel diary about their everyday life “in the field”. It has never been published, only the letters that Fallada wrote from France to his wife Anna (Suse) Ditzen have survived. According to the afterword, their publication closed one of the last gaps in Fallada’s biography.

A steadily increasing alcohol consumption

“If they get you, Hans Fallada”, Tucholsky had warned him about the Nazis as early as 1931 after the publication of “Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben”, “be careful that you don’t hang!” And added with prudent foresight: ” But it’s also possible that, in their stupidity, they believe that you wanted to get one over on the Sozis with the book, and then you’ll get an editor’s job.” Tucholsky was to be right. Fallada was considered by the National Socialists to be an “insecure cantonist”, from which, with good leadership, national capital could be made.

And he did halfway with it. In order not to have to confront his characters with the cynical brutality of the “Third Reich”, he simply let them trudge through the political chaos of the Weimar Republic in the books published after 1933. Sometimes he added forewords that were true to the line, sometimes a National Socialist novel ending like in “Der Eiserne Gustav”, which was easily removed again in later editions. He was later forgiven for that, as well as his years of covert walks into the world of trivial novels and funny animal stories.

In view of the “RAD letters” that have now appeared, the question of Fallada’s opportunism arises once again. In 1943 he already had an anti-Semitic novel commissioned by Goebbels – the manuscript has been lost – in his drawer. Now the NSDAP made him a “special leader” with the rank of major in order to send him to the German occupiers. Fallada is allowed to put together the itinerary himself; he is forbidden to give exact location details in writing. From Paris he drives via the town of L’Isle-Adam and Clermont-Ferrand to the Cote d’Azur: Marseille, Perpignan and Tarascon, the hometown of Alphonse Daudet’s cheeky braggart and imposter Tartarin, one of his favorite literary characters. Fallada rushes to visit RAD camps, construction sites and military hospitals (“360 beds in fifteen minutes – but I didn’t have more time!”), gives lectures on his impressions (“a wonderful mixture of the grotesque and the well-observed”) and learns to shoot. He wrote that he knew nothing at all about the “enormous achievements of the RAD” and is overwhelmed by all the “friendliness and camaraderie”. In Nîmes he watches a bullfight. He cannot get enough of the beauty of the “magnificent” landscape. He reports in detail to his wife on the quality of the meals and his constantly increasing alcohol consumption.