Gegen das Vergessen: Literatur-Lesung am 24. Juli 2026
The occasion for the reading: Commemorating July 20, 1944—the Stauffenberg assassination attempt, the resistance against Hitler, and the effort to overthrow the Nazi regime.
Hans Fallada wrote his last novel in the fall of 1946 in less than four weeks, as if in a fever: A Berlin couple, two elderly people of humble origins, plan their own form of resistance in Nazi-era Berlin. After their son was killed in the war, they want to make a statement: Between 1940 and 1942, Anna and Otto Quangel write postcards, which they leave in the stairwells of large apartment buildings in their neighborhood. The postcards bear messages such as “The common soldier Hitler and his gang are plunging us into the abyss…” Each new act posed the greatest danger, for the Gestapo had long had the Quangels and their circle in its sights. The noose was tightening.
Fallada’s novel is based on a true story—the resistance of the married couple Otto and Elise Hampel—as recorded in a Gestapo file. Otto and Elise Hampel were executed in Berlin-Plötzensee. Fallada had been able to view the file by chance and used the facts as the basis for his novel. From this moving, harrowing 700-page novel (unabridged original version), Martin Skoda reads three consecutive chapters.
During the Nazi era, Hans Fallada lived in seclusion as an “undesirable author” in Mecklenburg. In 1945, he moved to Berlin, where he died in 1947. In his foreword to *Everyone Dies Alone*, the writer noted: “...I didn’t enjoy painting such a bleak picture either, but anything brighter would have been a lie.”
The two initiators of this reading series, Heidi Petermann and
Ekkehard Nau, view their selection for the culture of remembrance as
a personal wake-up call. The “Against Forgetting” project is sponsored by the Bleckede Town and Castle Community Foundation and supported by the Gosselk Foundation.
Against Forgetting
Admission: 12 euros; free for young people up to age 18.
Hans Fallada wrote his last novel in the fall of 1946 in less than four weeks, as if in a fever: A Berlin couple, two elderly people of humble origins, plan their own form of resistance in Nazi-era Berlin. After their son was killed in the war, they want to make a statement: Between 1940 and 1942, Anna and Otto Quangel write postcards, which they leave in the stairwells of large apartment buildings in their neighborhood. The postcards bear messages such as “The common soldier Hitler and his gang are plunging us into the abyss…” Each new act posed the greatest danger, for the Gestapo had long had the Quangels and their circle in its sights. The noose was tightening.
Fallada’s novel is based on a true story—the resistance of the married couple Otto and Elise Hampel—as recorded in a Gestapo file. Otto and Elise Hampel were executed in Berlin-Plötzensee. Fallada had been able to view the file by chance and used the facts as the basis for his novel. From this moving, harrowing 700-page novel (unabridged original version), Martin Skoda reads three consecutive chapters.
During the Nazi era, Hans Fallada lived in seclusion as an “undesirable author” in Mecklenburg. In 1945, he moved to Berlin, where he died in 1947. In his foreword to *Everyone Dies Alone*, the writer noted: “...I didn’t enjoy painting such a bleak picture either, but anything brighter would have been a lie.”
The two initiators of this reading series, Heidi Petermann and
Ekkehard Nau, view their selection for the culture of remembrance as
a personal wake-up call. The “Against Forgetting” project is sponsored by the Bleckede Town and Castle Community Foundation and supported by the Gosselk Foundation.
Against Forgetting
Admission: 12 euros; free for young people up to age 18.
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Target Group Teenager
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Target Group the Elderly
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Price adult: €12.00
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Flusslandschaft Elbe GmbH
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