Wolf Among Wolves

Wolf Among Wolves
First published as Wolf Unter Wölfen by Rowohlt, Berlin, 1937M
© Aufbau-Verlagsgruppe GmbH, Berlin 1994 (Published with Aufbau;
“Aufbau” is a trademark of Aufbau Verlagsgruppe GmbH)
First translated into English by Phillip Owens and published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1938

This restored, unabridged edition © 2010 Melville House Publishing Additional translations by Thorsten Carstensen and Nicholas Jacobs.
Afterword © Thorsten Carstensen

Melville House Publishing
145 Plymouth Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201
www.mhpbooks.com

First Melville House Printing: April 2010

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fallada, Hans, 1893-1947.
  [Wolf unter Wölfen. English]
  Wolf among wolves / Hans Fallada ; translated by Philip Owens ; this unabridged edition restored with additional translations by Thorsten Carstensen and Nicholas Jacobs ; afterword by Thorsten Carstensen.
      p. cm.
  eISBN: 978-1-935554-89-9
  1. Germany—History—1918-1933—Fiction. 2. World War, 1914-1918—Social aspects—Germany—Fiction. 3. Germany—Social conditions—1918-1933—Fiction. 4. Germany—Economic conditions—1918-1945—Fiction. I. Owens,
Philip. II. Title.

PT2607.I6W613 2010
833′.912—dc                                                                             2010001949

v3.1

A Word to the Reader

The author has been reproached by some readers of his novel Once We Had a Child for making his hero, Johannes Gäntschow, such a brute. He has read this complaint with some astonishment, for as he wanted to portray a brutal man he could not depict a kind one. To avoid similar complaints the author warns in this preface (which can be glanced through in a moment at any bookstore) that Wolf Among Wolves deals with sinful, weak, sensual, erring, unstable men, the children of an age disjointed, mad and sick. All in all, it is a book for those who are, in every sense, adult.

Another not superfluous observation is that this is a novel, and therefore a product of the imagination. Everything in it—characters, events, places, names—is invented, and even if time or place should seem to point to a definite person, the novel is nevertheless only invention, fancy, fiction, story.

While not aiming at a photographic likeness, the author wished to picture a time that is both recent and yet entirely eclipsed. It behooves the rescued not altogether to forget past danger, but, remembering it, to appreciate doubly the happy issue.

                    H. F.

A Note on the Text

Philip Owens’ translation of Wolf Among Wolves was published by Putnam’s in New York and London in 1938. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the book was heavily edited in translation: hundreds of passages, including entire paragraphs, were edited out the first English edition. This new edition restores the novel by comparing the abbreviated English edition with the original German text published by Rowohlt Verlag in September 1937. New passages have been translated by Nicholas Jacobs and myself and added to Owens’ impressive original.

THORSTEN CARSTENSEN,
New York University

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

A Word to the Reader

A Note on the Text

                         Part One—The Unquiet City

             One    Awake in Berlin—and Elsewhere

             Two    Berlin Slumps

           Three    Hunters and Hunted

            Four    An Oppressive Afternoon in
                       Town and Country

             Five    The Storm Breaks

               Six    It Is Still Sultry after the Storm

           Seven    Full Moon on an Oppressive Night

           Eight    He Goes Astray in the Night

            Nine    A New Start to a New Day

                         Part Two—The Land Afire

             Ten    The Peace of the Fields

         Eleven    The Devil’s Hussars Come

        Twelve    The Quest Fails

      Thirteen    Lost and Forsaken

      Fourteen    Life Goes On

        Fifteen    The Last Does Not Bemain Alone

        Sixteen    The Miracle of the Bentenmark

                          Afterword

Part One
The Unquiet City

Chapter One
Awake in Berlin—and Elsewhere

I

A girl and a man were sleeping on a narrow iron bed. The girl’s head rested in the crook of her right arm; her mouth, softly breathing, was half open; her face bore a pouting and anxious expression—that of a child who cannot understand why it is sad.

She lay turned away from the man, who slept on his back in a state of utter exhaustion, his arms loose. Tiny beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and in the roots of his curly fair hair; the handsome defiant face looked somewhat vacant. In spite of the open window the room was very hot, and the pair slept without blanket or covering. This is Berlin, Georgenkirchstrasse, third courtyard, fourth floor, July 1923, at six o’clock in the morning. The dollar stands for the moment at 414,000 marks.

II

Out of the dark well of the courtyard the smells from a hundred lodgings drifted into their sleep.