A Stranger in My Own Country
Contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Introduction
- The 1944 Prison Diary
- Notes
- The 1944 Prison Diary
- The genesis of the Prison Diary manuscript
- Chronology
- Index
- End User License Agreement
Guide
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Begin Reading
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A Stranger in
My Own Country
The 1944 Prison Diary
HANS FALLADA
Edited by Jenny Williams and Sabine Lange
Translated by Allan Blunden
polity
First published in German as In meinem fremden Land. Gefängnistagebuch 1944
© Aufbau Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin 2009
This English edition © Polity Press, 2015
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut London which is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
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Malden, MA 02148, USA
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-8156-6
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fallada, Hans, 1893-1947.
A stranger in my own country : The 1944 Prison Diary, 1944 / Hans Fallada. pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7456-6988-5 (jacketed hardback : alk. paper) 1. Fallada, Hans, 1893–1947--Diaries. 2. Authors, German--20th century--Diaries. 3. Authors, German--20th century--Biography. 4. Prisons--Germany--Neustrelitz--History--20th century. I.nTitle.
PT2607.I6Z46 2014
833’.912--dc23
[B]
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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
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Introduction
On 4 September 1944 Hans Fallada was committed to the Neustrelitz-Strelitz state facility, a prison for ‘mentally ill criminals’ in Mecklenburg, some seventy miles north of Berlin, where he was to be kept under observation for an indefinite period of time. His fate was entirely uncertain.
This was not the first time that this son of an Imperial Supreme Court judge found himself behind bars. In 1923 and 1926 he had already been jailed for six months and two and a half years respectively on charges of embezzlement. In both cases his drug addiction had been a key factor. In 1933 he had been accused of involvement in a conspiracy against the person of the Führer, and had been taken into protective custody for eleven days. In the autumn of 1944 the charge was a different one: Fallada was accused of having threatened to kill his ex-wife on 28 August 1944.
The divorce had been finalized on 5 July 1944. Yet the couple continued to live together, with others, on the farm in Carwitz: Anna (Suse) Ditzen in the house with their three children, her mother-in-law and a constantly changing number of bombed-out friends and relatives, Hans Fallada in the gardener’s flat in the barn. On that Monday afternoon at the end of August the heavily intoxicated Fallada fired a shot from his pistol during an argument. Anna Ditzen took the gun away from him, threw it in the lake and alerted Dr Hotop, the doctor from the neighbouring town of Feldberg. Both Fallada and Anna Ditzen later testified that the gunshot was not intended to kill. Dr Hotop sent the local police constable to escort his patient to Feldberg to sober up. The matter might have ended there, but the story came to the ears of an over-zealous young prosecutor. He insisted on having Hans Fallada transferred to the district court in Neustrelitz for questioning. On 31 August the accused was ordered to be ‘temporarily committed to a psychiatric institution’. On 4 September the gates of the Neustrelitz-Strelitz state facility closed behind Hans Fallada. He was placed for an indefinite period in Ward III, where insane or partially insane criminals were housed.
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