• War
• Fascism
• Resistance

They fought alone against war and fascism, armed only with postcards and ink. Hans Fallada’s novel tells the story of a working-class couple in the resistance. All around them: a world that turns a blind eye to tyranny, tolerates it or goes along with it for its own gain. Informers, profiteers, characters shattered by everyday violence – in a city, in a country, gripped by fear and caught between acquiescence and catastrophe. With Every Man for Himself, 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. It is then that 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 dies as a result of his addiction. Everyone Dies Alone is his final novel.