Hans Fallada
German writer (1893–1947)
Hans Fallada (German: [hans ˈfa.la.da] ; born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen; 21 July 1893 – 5 February 1947) was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include Little Man, What Now? (1932) and Every Man Dies Alone (1947). His works belong predominantly to the New Objectivity literary style, a style associated with an emotionless reportage approach, with precision of detail, and a veneration for 'the fact'. Fallada's pseudonym derives from a combination of characters found in Grimms' Fairy Tales: The titular protagonist of Hans in Luck (KHM 83), and Fallada the magical talking horse in The Goose Girl. Fallada was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936, and 1939.
Early life
Fallada was born in Greifswald, Germany, 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 (1998), that Fallada's father would often read aloud to his children works by authors such as Shakespeare and Schiller.
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.
“Hans Fallada” enters the record as german writer (1893–1947). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hans, Fallada and German can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q76539. VIAF identifies the subject as 24639475. The Library of Congress control number is n50059889. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1893, 1947, 1932 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hans Fallada” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.