Every Man Dies Alone Read Online Free PDF

someone called Enno before nightfall—Enno might be just the man for the situation.But no worries, he’ll find Enno all right. Enno makes his daily rounds of the three or four pubs where the low rollers go. Borkhausen doesn’t know Enno’s full name. He only knows him by sight, from a couple of pubs where everyone calls him Enno. But he’ll find him all right, and it could be he’s exactly the man Borkhausen is looking for.
* Winter Relief Fund was a Nazi-organized charity collected during the winter months. Pressure to contribute was considerable, and armbands and pins were distributed for public display to identify donors—and thus, non-donors. Much of the money was siphoned off by the Party, and scholars have noted that it kept the populace short of extra cash and acclimated to the idea of privation.

Chapter 4
    TRUDEL BAUMANN BETRAYS A SECRET
    While it might have been easy for Otto Quangel to get into the factory, getting Trudel Baumann called out for a moment to see him was an entirely different matter. They didn’t just work shifts as they did in Quangel’s factory, no, each individual had to produce so and so much piecework, and every minute counted.
    But finally Quangel is successful, not least because the man in charge is a foreman like himself. It’s not easy to refuse a favor to a colleague, much less one who has just lost his son. Quangel was forced to say that, just for a chance to speak to Trudel. As a consequence, he will have to break the news to her himself, whatever his wife said, otherwise she might hear it from her boss. Hopefully, there won’t be any screaming or fainting. Actually, Anna took it remarkably well—and surely Trudel’s a sensible girl, too.
    Here she is at last, and Quangel, who’s never had eyes for anyone but his wife, has to admit that she looks ravishing, with her dark mop of curls, her round bonny face that no factory work was able to deprive of its healthy color, her laughing eyes, and her high breasts. Even now, in her blue overalls and an ancient darned and patched sweater, she looks gorgeous. But maybe the most captivating thing about her is the way she moves, so full of life, every step expressive of her, overflowing with joie de vivre.
    Strange thing, it crosses Otto Quangel’s mind, that a lard-ass like our Otto, a little mama’s boy, could land such a girl as that. But then, he corrects himself, what do I really know about Otto? I never saw him straight. He must have been completely different to how I thought. And he really understood a thing or two about radios; employers lined up for him.
    “Hello, Trudel,” he says, and holds out his hand, into which she quickly slips her own warm, plump hand.
    “Hello, Papa,” she replies. “What’s going on at home? Does Mama miss me, or has Otto written? You know I like to pop by and see you whenever I can.”
    “It’ll have to be tonight, Trudel,” Otto Quangel says. “You see, the thing is…”
    But he doesn’t finish the sentence. With typical briskness, Trudel has dived into her blue overalls and pulled out a pocket calendar, and now starts leafing through it. She’s only half listening, it’s not the moment to tell her anything. So Quangel waits while she finds whatever it is she’s looking for.
    The meeting of the two of them takes place in a long, drafty corridor whose whitewashed walls are covered with posters. Quangel’s eye is caught by the one over Trudel’s shoulder. He reads the jagged inscription: In the Name of the German People , followed by three names and were sentenced to death by hanging for their crimes of treason. The sentence was carried out this morning at Plötzensee Prison .
    Involuntarily he takes hold of Trudel with both hands and leads her away from the picture so that he doesn’t have to see her and it together. “What is it?” she asks in perplexity, and then her eyes follow his, and she reads the poster in turn. She emits a noise that might signify anything: protest against