The Little Man Doomed to Fall

How much money do we have now? How much will we have tomorrow? And how much will we have the day after? What is the salary, if there is any at all? How much will they give us next month? Will we even have a job next month?

In Hans Fallada’s 1932 novel Kleiner Mann – was nun? (Little Man, What Now? 1996, translated by Susan Bennett), these questions define the lives of the young couple, Pinneberg and Lämmchen. They plan, calculate, save, and even agree on a monthly budget, but their situation remains hopeless. Life remains unpredictable, the future full of uncertainty. No matter how hard the little man struggles to resist total material and human collapse, he fails again and again –if not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then the day after – for he never had a chance to begin with.

We find ourselves in Berlin, in the years after the Great Depression of 1929. Inflation is at record highs, unemployment is rising, and the days of the Weimar Republic are numbered. Today’s reader cannot ignore the historical context; we must interpret the story in light of Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. Fallada, who, at the time of writing, could only sense what the future might hold, paints a precise and historically fascinating portrait of a disintegrating and radicalizing German society. Living standards are falling drastically, and democratic institutions prove incapable of solving the crisis. Pinneberg suffers the consequences of these problems, experiencing the decline of the German state firsthand.

Upon its publication, the novel was an international success. It became a bestseller in Britain and even inspired a film adaptation in the United States. Its excellent reception owed much to its accessible language, its sentimental, yet never kitschy, humane perspective. Later, the Nazi regime banned the book and tried to erase Fallada’s whole life’s work. Fortunately, they did not succeed, and to this day, the novel is regarded as one of the classics of twentieth-century German literature.

Following the principles of Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), Fallada presents the couple’s everyday life in a realistic, documentary style. While the narrator moves Pinneberg and his wife like chess pieces across Berlin, he treats them with empathy and care. He forgives Pinneberg’s timid, self-effacing nature. Pinneberg means well: he works diligently, enduring hardships to provide a decent life for his wife and their child.

The Pinnebergs always try to remain optimistic; their hardships only strengthen their marriage. The small joys of life, the distant hope of a better future, and the anticipation of their child all bring moments of comfort, allowing them, if only briefly, to forget their existential worries. And when things look hopeless, some stroke of luck always saves them: Lämmchen finds a flat, Pinneberg gets a job, their baby is born safely. But eventually their luck runs out and “it’s all over, all, all over.” still, “life goes on,” as does the wounded Pinneberg family’s existence, only the uncomfortable questions change; it is no longer where their next job will come from, but whether they should they „steal wood?”

Pinneberg must slowly come to terms with his powerless position. He must accept that he is a replaceable minor figure who could be dispossessed at any moment, and that he was never entitled to an easier life. At first, he resists childishly: he buys his wife a dressing mirror he can’t afford and writes complaint letters to the health insurance office that refuses to pay him, but against his bullying superiors and coworkers he remains a helpless nobody: “when squeezed, he loses his shape, collapses, nothing remains of him – he is like dough, nothing more.”

The novel’s strange side characters are all ordinary little people like Pinneberg, only less dough-like. His colleague Heilbutt is a model of heroism, he stands up for himself and for his friend, defending Pinneberg from their superiors. However, we also learn that he attends nudist gatherings and sells nude photographs of himself. Another complex figure is Holger Jackmann, the lover of Pinneberg’s mother. He is a loud and influential man with shady dealings. Through his connections, he helps Pinneberg find employment. It is never entirely clear why Jackmann keeps disappearing, or how Heilbutt manages to open a profitable erotic art business. Both men survive thanks to their morally dubious dealings, standing in sharp contrast to Pinneberg’s rule-abiding, conformist nature, a trait that ultimately leads to his social and financial downfall.

We meet the most unsympathetic figures at Pinneberg’s workplace. Kessler is a scheming coworker who, though gaining nothing from it, tries to ruin the little man’s life. Another typical figure of the era, Lauterbach, joins the Nazis out of boredom, just to have something to do between the morning church visits and the evening cinema screenings. Pinneberg’s dough-like nature appears most clearly in contrast to these repulsive yet determined characters, as he, along with many others, drifts among the era’s intensifying radical ideologies:

“However those who had stayed behind, the poorest, the toughest and the bravest, felt they belonged together. The trouble was that they did not belong together: they were either Communists or Nazis, so there were continual arguments and fights.

Pinneberg had not yet been able to decide in favour of one or the other, and he had thought that would be the easiest way to slide through. But sometimes it actually seemed the most difficult”. (Fallada 1933, 343)

We often draw parallels between the problems of today and the trends of the 1930s: the housing crisis, unemployment, the rise of extremist ideologies, the decline of democracies, processes that can foreshadow major historical catastrophes. As individuals, we may hope to “slide through”, when powers far greater than ourselves threaten to bring our lives to ruin. Yet such maneuvering is no reliable strategy. Our only chance lies in learning to see ourselves within our real circumstances, to understand our present and our place in it, and to recognize the forces that shape it. Even this, of course, is no guarantee of survival, for though Pinneberg comes ever closer to understanding his situation, he does so only at the cost of total social exclusion.

“Pinneberg tried to speak; he looked at the policeman, his lips trembled; he looked at the people. They were standing right up to the shop window, well-dressed people, respectable people, people who earned money.

But reflected in the window was another figure: a pale outline without a collar, in a shabby coat, with trousers besmirched with tar.

And suddenly Pinneberg understood everything. Faced with this policeman, these respectable people, this bright shop window, he understood that he was on the outside now, that he didn’t belong here any more, and that it was perfectly correct to chase him away. Down the slippery slope, sunk without trace, utterly destroyed. Order and cleanliness, gone; work, material security, gone; making progress and hope, gone. Poverty is not just misery, poverty is an offence, poverty is a stain, poverty is suspect”. (Fallada 1933, 343)

Little Man, What Now? Rightly belongs among the classics of twentieth-century literature. With its endearing characters and accessible narrative style, it is an easy yet deeply meaningful novel that remains well worth reading. Fallada captures the decaying and increasingly dehumanized spirit of his time. A world where tomorrow is uncertain, and the day after even less predictable; a time when the battered, abandoned little man can hardly be blamed for his downfall. After all, his only wish was to survive.