Erzählungen vom kleinen Widerstand im großen Kino. Hans Falladas Jeder stirbt für sich allein (1947) und Alfred Vohrers Verfilmung

Comparing Hans Fallada’s last novel Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Every Man Dies Alone, 1947) and its adaptation by Alfred Vohrer in 1976, this article underlines the need to discuss the German politics of the past in conjunction with the politics of emotion, which fictional works use to realize and visualize the ‘Third Reich’. The narrative and topical examination revolves around three configurations—the narrated decision to resist, the portrayal of German Jewish relations, and the weighing of German suffering and German crimes—and shows that the novel focuses on angst and human decency, while the film represents resistance as motherly writings from the heart and as a legacy passed on from one generation to the next. These differences are attributed to shifting constellations of historical culture in post-war Germany and the different medium-specific narrative strategies to emotionalize audiences.