Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every Man Dies Alone)

Informers, profiteers from the crisis, characters shattered by everyday violence – in a city, in a country gripped by fear, caught between acquiescence and catastrophe.

With *Every Man Dies Alone*, director Jette Steckel turns her attention to one of the great Berlin tableaux of the 20th century.

Hans Fallada is one of the 20th century’s most compelling storytellers. He writes about the unemployed and prisoners, about prostitutes, gamblers and alcoholics. He knows all these characters well, for life repeatedly drags him into his own abysses. Fallada is a morphine addict, a heavy drinker, and writes his novels as if in a destructive frenzy.

By the end of the war, the author is 53 years old and seriously ill – as well as heavily in debt and virtually homeless. Then he receives a stack of Gestapo files from the Communist Cultural Association, along with an offer to write a novel based on the case documented therein.

In four weeks, he produces nearly 900 manuscript pages; it is the story of a married couple who spend two years distributing leaflets bearing anti-fascist slogans until they are arrested and executed in Plötzensee.

Shortly after completing the novel, Fallada died as a result of his addiction. *Everyone Dies Alone* is his final novel.