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Lilly und ihr Sklave: Mit unveröffentlichten Erzählungen
Previously unpublished stories by the bestselling author of Alone in Berlin.
In September 1925, Hans Fallada handed himself in to the police. Not yet a bestselling author, Fallada had repeatedly embezzled funds to finance his alcohol and morphine addictions. Desperate to escape his demons, he sought a prison cell.
Now court documents from Fallada’s imprisonment have recently been uncovered, and with them a never-before-seen collection of short stories. Through complex characters at odds with society, Fallada explored the lived the lives of women and male outsiders.
These stories reveal to a new generation of readers Fallada’s immense gifts and his intense inner battles.
In September 1925, Hans Fallada handed himself in to the police. Not yet a bestselling author, Fallada had repeatedly embezzled funds to finance his alcohol and morphine addictions. Desperate to escape his demons, he sought a prison cell.
Now court documents from Fallada’s imprisonment have recently been uncovered, and with them a never-before-seen collection of short stories. Through complex characters at odds with society, Fallada explored the lived the lives of women and male outsiders.
These stories reveal to a new generation of readers Fallada’s immense gifts and his intense inner battles.
Hardcover
Published April 12, 2021
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About the author
Hans Fallada
219 books769 followersHans Fallada, born Rudolf Wilhelm Adolf Ditzen in Greifswald, was one of the most famous German writers of the 20th century. His novel, Little Man, What Now? is generally considered his most famous work and is a classic of German literature. Fallada's pseudonym derives from a combination of characters found in the Grimm fairy tales: The protagonist of Lucky Hans and a horse named Falada in The Goose Girl.
He was the child of a magistrate on his way to becoming a supreme court judge and a mother from a middle-class background, both of whom shared an enthusiasm for music and to a lesser extent, literature. Jenny Williams notes in her biography, More Lives than One that Fallada's father would often read aloud to his children the works authors including Shakespeare and Schiller (Williams, 5).
In 1899 when Fallada was 6, his father relocated the family to Berlin following the first of several promotions he would receive. Fallada had a very difficult time upon first entering school in 1901. As a result, he immersed himself in books, eschewing literature more in line with his age for authors including Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, and Dickens. In 1909 the family relocated to Leipzig following his father's appointment to the Imperial Supreme Court.
A rather severe road accident in 1909 (he was run over by a horse-drawn cart, then kicked in the face by the horse) and the contraction of typhoid in 1910 seem to mark a turning point in Fallada's life and the end of his relatively care-free youth. His adolescent years were characterized by increasing isolation and self-doubt, compounded by the lingering effects of these ailments. In addition, his life-long drug problems were born of the pain-killing medications he was taking as the result of his injuries. These issues manifested themselves in multiple suicide attempts. In 1911 he made a pact with his close friend, Hanns Dietrich, to stage a duel to mask their suicides, feeling that the duel would be seen as more honorable. Because of both boys' inexperience with weapons, it was a bungled affair. Dietrich missed Fallada, but Fallada did not miss Dietrich, killing him. Fallada was so distraught that he picked up Dietrich's gun and shot himself in the chest, but miraculously survived. Nonetheless, the death of his friend ensured his status as an outcast from society. Although he was found innocent of murder by way of insanity, from this point on he would serve multiple stints in mental institutions. At one of these institutions, he was assigned to work in a farmyard, thus beginning his lifelong affinity for farm culture.
While in a sanatorium, Fallada took to translation and poetry, albeit unsuccessfully, before finally breaking ground as a novelist in 1920 with the publication of his first book Young Goedeschal. During this period he also struggled with morphine addiction, and the death of his younger brother in the first World War.
In the wake of the war, Fallada worked several farmhand and other agricultural jobs in order to support himself and finance his growing drug addictions. Before the war, Fallada relied on his father for financial support while writing; after the German defeat he was no longer able, nor willing, to depend on his father's assistance. Shortly after the publication of Anton and Gerda, Fallada reported to prison in Greiswald to serve a 6-month sentence for stealing grain from his employer and selling it to support his drug habit. Less than 3 years later, in 1926, Fallada again found himself imprisoned as a result of a drug and alcohol-fueled string of thefts from employers. In February 1928 he finally emerged free of addiction.
Fallada married Suse Issel in 1929 and maintained a string of respectable jobs in journalism, working for newspapers and eventually for the publisher of his novels, Rowohlt. It is around this time that his novels became noticeably political and started to comment
He was the child of a magistrate on his way to becoming a supreme court judge and a mother from a middle-class background, both of whom shared an enthusiasm for music and to a lesser extent, literature. Jenny Williams notes in her biography, More Lives than One that Fallada's father would often read aloud to his children the works authors including Shakespeare and Schiller (Williams, 5).
In 1899 when Fallada was 6, his father relocated the family to Berlin following the first of several promotions he would receive. Fallada had a very difficult time upon first entering school in 1901. As a result, he immersed himself in books, eschewing literature more in line with his age for authors including Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, and Dickens. In 1909 the family relocated to Leipzig following his father's appointment to the Imperial Supreme Court.
A rather severe road accident in 1909 (he was run over by a horse-drawn cart, then kicked in the face by the horse) and the contraction of typhoid in 1910 seem to mark a turning point in Fallada's life and the end of his relatively care-free youth. His adolescent years were characterized by increasing isolation and self-doubt, compounded by the lingering effects of these ailments. In addition, his life-long drug problems were born of the pain-killing medications he was taking as the result of his injuries. These issues manifested themselves in multiple suicide attempts. In 1911 he made a pact with his close friend, Hanns Dietrich, to stage a duel to mask their suicides, feeling that the duel would be seen as more honorable. Because of both boys' inexperience with weapons, it was a bungled affair. Dietrich missed Fallada, but Fallada did not miss Dietrich, killing him. Fallada was so distraught that he picked up Dietrich's gun and shot himself in the chest, but miraculously survived. Nonetheless, the death of his friend ensured his status as an outcast from society. Although he was found innocent of murder by way of insanity, from this point on he would serve multiple stints in mental institutions. At one of these institutions, he was assigned to work in a farmyard, thus beginning his lifelong affinity for farm culture.
While in a sanatorium, Fallada took to translation and poetry, albeit unsuccessfully, before finally breaking ground as a novelist in 1920 with the publication of his first book Young Goedeschal. During this period he also struggled with morphine addiction, and the death of his younger brother in the first World War.
In the wake of the war, Fallada worked several farmhand and other agricultural jobs in order to support himself and finance his growing drug addictions. Before the war, Fallada relied on his father for financial support while writing; after the German defeat he was no longer able, nor willing, to depend on his father's assistance. Shortly after the publication of Anton and Gerda, Fallada reported to prison in Greiswald to serve a 6-month sentence for stealing grain from his employer and selling it to support his drug habit. Less than 3 years later, in 1926, Fallada again found himself imprisoned as a result of a drug and alcohol-fueled string of thefts from employers. In February 1928 he finally emerged free of addiction.
Fallada married Suse Issel in 1929 and maintained a string of respectable jobs in journalism, working for newspapers and eventually for the publisher of his novels, Rowohlt. It is around this time that his novels became noticeably political and started to comment
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 5, 2022
The six short stories that comprise this volume - Robinson in Prison, The Machinery of Love, Lilly and Her Slave, The Great Love, Pogg, the Coward, and Who Can Be the Judge? - were found in the papers of a psychiatrist whose patient in the mid-1920s was the writer Rudolf Ditzen, the real name of Hans Fallada. Three of them - Robinson, Lilly and Judge - are published here for the first time.
I’d like to say they’re as good as the previous books of Fallada’s I’ve read - Alone in Berlin, Nightmare in Berlin and Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism - but they’re none of them particularly good and it’s no great literary treasure that’s been unearthed here unfortunately.
Pogg, the Coward is interesting to an extent in that it’s very autobiographical (Fallada really did kill his childhood friend in a suicide pact gone wrong) revealing his feelings of guilt and perhaps shedding light on his self-destructive behaviour that led to his being institutionalised, which is where he wrote these stories.
The Great Love and The Machinery of Love are by far the two longest stories here and both are the life stories of two women. Great Love is about a woman who could probably be accurately described as having borderline personality disorder as we learn of her love of the man she would marry and how it changed over the years as they drifted apart, he cheated on her, etc. and her responses to that - obsessively clinging onto him and punishing him, but never letting him go, and so on.
The Machinery of Love is about a woman looking back at her life and relating the affairs she had, providing a glimpse into the bohemian natures of pre-WW1 Germany and particularly Weimar-era Germany too.
The new unpublished stories though are so very poor. Robinson in Prison is about being imprisoned, Lilly and Her Slave is about a young girl who slowly discovers her power over men, and Who Can Be the Judge? is a weird rambling hypothetical story about justice - I think. I’m really just guessing because they’re so forgettable that they didn’t leave any impression behind on me. All I know is that I didn’t like them and couldn’t have cared less while I was reading them.
Which can be said about the other three stories too. I remember Pogg, Great and Machinery more but I didn’t think they were especially brilliant stories and I can’t say I enjoyed them much either. Parts of them were fleetingly compelling but otherwise these are stories few people will find even mildly enthralling due to their meandering, unfocused, dull, and general pointless features.
I really do recommend Hans Fallada’s more famous books because, although the subject matter in them is grim, they’re also undeniably fascinating, well-written and memorable. But, even for fans of the author, I wouldn’t recommend Lilly and Her Slave because they’re the opposite of what I’ve just described - this is definitely the weakest of Fallada’s work that I’ve read so far and only of any value to literary historians of this writer.
I’d like to say they’re as good as the previous books of Fallada’s I’ve read - Alone in Berlin, Nightmare in Berlin and Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism - but they’re none of them particularly good and it’s no great literary treasure that’s been unearthed here unfortunately.
Pogg, the Coward is interesting to an extent in that it’s very autobiographical (Fallada really did kill his childhood friend in a suicide pact gone wrong) revealing his feelings of guilt and perhaps shedding light on his self-destructive behaviour that led to his being institutionalised, which is where he wrote these stories.
The Great Love and The Machinery of Love are by far the two longest stories here and both are the life stories of two women. Great Love is about a woman who could probably be accurately described as having borderline personality disorder as we learn of her love of the man she would marry and how it changed over the years as they drifted apart, he cheated on her, etc. and her responses to that - obsessively clinging onto him and punishing him, but never letting him go, and so on.
The Machinery of Love is about a woman looking back at her life and relating the affairs she had, providing a glimpse into the bohemian natures of pre-WW1 Germany and particularly Weimar-era Germany too.
The new unpublished stories though are so very poor. Robinson in Prison is about being imprisoned, Lilly and Her Slave is about a young girl who slowly discovers her power over men, and Who Can Be the Judge? is a weird rambling hypothetical story about justice - I think. I’m really just guessing because they’re so forgettable that they didn’t leave any impression behind on me. All I know is that I didn’t like them and couldn’t have cared less while I was reading them.
Which can be said about the other three stories too. I remember Pogg, Great and Machinery more but I didn’t think they were especially brilliant stories and I can’t say I enjoyed them much either. Parts of them were fleetingly compelling but otherwise these are stories few people will find even mildly enthralling due to their meandering, unfocused, dull, and general pointless features.
I really do recommend Hans Fallada’s more famous books because, although the subject matter in them is grim, they’re also undeniably fascinating, well-written and memorable. But, even for fans of the author, I wouldn’t recommend Lilly and Her Slave because they’re the opposite of what I’ve just described - this is definitely the weakest of Fallada’s work that I’ve read so far and only of any value to literary historians of this writer.
June 9, 2024
Hans Fallada’nın tesadüfi olarak ortaya çıkan öykülerinden oluşan bir seçki Kendinden Kaçamayanın Öyküsü. Fallada, morfin ve alkol bağımlılığı sebebiyle yaşadığı maddi sıkıntılar içindeyken, zimmetine para geçirmekten suçlu bulunur. Bu dava dosyasına adli tıp uzmanı Ernst Ziemke, Fallada ile ilgili raporu yanında, yazarın öykülerini de ekler. Dava dosyası kaybolur; ardından yayıncının biyografik çalışmaları için dava ile ilgili yaptığı araştırmalar sırasında bulduğu dosyada sürpriz şekilde bu öyküler ortaya çıkar.
Kitaptaki Korkak Pogg adlı öykü otobiyografik özellikler taşıyor ve kitabın sonunda anlatılan Fallada’nın yaşamı ile ilgili notlarla örtüşüyor. Bu kitaptaki öyküler yazıldığında Fallada henüz ünlü bir yazar değildi. Ernst Ziemke’nin bilmeden öyküleri de dava dosyasına eklemesi büyük bir tesadüf olarak görülüyor.
Daha önce okuduğum iki öykü kitabında Fallada’nın kısa öyküleri yer alıyordu. Bu kitaptaki öyküler ise uzun. İçerik olarak da Ziemke’nin yazdığı, psikolojik sorunlar ve bağımlılıkların etkisi görülüyor.
Fallada’nın zor hayatına ışık tutan bir öykü kitabı. Sonunda yer alan Kendinden Kaçan Biri adlı bölümde Fallada’nın kısa bir biyografisi yer alıyor.
Kitaptaki Korkak Pogg adlı öykü otobiyografik özellikler taşıyor ve kitabın sonunda anlatılan Fallada’nın yaşamı ile ilgili notlarla örtüşüyor. Bu kitaptaki öyküler yazıldığında Fallada henüz ünlü bir yazar değildi. Ernst Ziemke’nin bilmeden öyküleri de dava dosyasına eklemesi büyük bir tesadüf olarak görülüyor.
Daha önce okuduğum iki öykü kitabında Fallada’nın kısa öyküleri yer alıyordu. Bu kitaptaki öyküler ise uzun. İçerik olarak da Ziemke’nin yazdığı, psikolojik sorunlar ve bağımlılıkların etkisi görülüyor.
Fallada’nın zor hayatına ışık tutan bir öykü kitabı. Sonunda yer alan Kendinden Kaçan Biri adlı bölümde Fallada’nın kısa bir biyografisi yer alıyor.
September 28, 2024
Öyküler değil ama yazarın hayat hikayesinin mahkeme bilirkişi raporları üzerinden ortaya konması çok ilginçti. Yazarın psikiyatrik değerlendirmesi, mektupları, aile üyelerinin verdiği ifadeler ile hazırlanan bilirkişi raporları Fallada’nın nasıl bir insan olduğunu, hangi hayat cenderelerinden geçerek yazdığını gösteriyor.
November 10, 2025
The main stories look at women’s emotions and sexuality.
July 22, 2023
such a beautiful way of looking at love
October 15, 2025
Fabulous feast for Fallada fans. I am an instant fan of Fallada and have already bought his biography. What an interesting collection written nearly 100 years ago. A new (for me) style so rich in its originality with a sort of bleakness and brutal honesty. As a psychiatrist, 2 stories: 'Lilly and her slave' and 'The great love' were such good descriptions of individuals with personality disorders, although they seemed way too long and repetitive, that it's easy to give up reading part of the way through. The last story: 'Who can be the judge?' is a very good way to start an essay on what qualifications should judges have and also their role in society, which I suspect is a current theme in the UK. The story: 'Pogg, the coward' rakes up an interesting issue - what creates criminals whilst being ?part biographical whilst taking the reader on a ride, like Pogg in the story, so ingenious.
January 4, 2024
This collection of Fallada's early short stories was only discovered and published in 2021. It was worth reading, but perhaps not surprisingly it isn't as impressive as his better-known works.
Of the three shorter works only "Pogg, the Coward" was particularly interesting, due to its clear autobiographical influences. "The Great Love" was decent but ended up a bit of a slog due to its main characters' absence of any redeeming qualities. "The Machinery of Love" is the best of the lot, with an interesting and complex protagonist.
Of the three shorter works only "Pogg, the Coward" was particularly interesting, due to its clear autobiographical influences. "The Great Love" was decent but ended up a bit of a slog due to its main characters' absence of any redeeming qualities. "The Machinery of Love" is the best of the lot, with an interesting and complex protagonist.
November 25, 2022
These stories have recently been discovered from papers of the psychiatrist to the author when he was in prison. The two major pieces display a very jaundiced view of the quality of relationship within marriage. As long as you do not expect a cheerful view of life Mr Fallada as a writer stylistically never disappoints.
July 7, 2024
a funny collection of weird stories. i enjoyed the machinery of love, and lilly and her slave. the great love was quite painful and annoying to read but it was quite enjoyable. very fun that these were the stories he chose to write in prison, what an amusing guy.
October 22, 2022
some are better than others - The Great Love and Who Can Be The Judge being my favourites - but averaging to a 4
June 29, 2024
Early short stories written by Fallada while in prison in the mid-1920s. The promise is present but he is not a great writer yet.
January 7, 2025
Çeviri çok kötü. Çok fazla bozuk cümle var.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews