Der eiserne Gustav by Hans Fallada (Büchergilde Gutenberg)
Franziska Neubert used David Kerkhoff’s Rotorua (Hanoded, 2014) for the cover of Der eiserne Gustav (“Iron Gustav”).
In this novel, Hans Fallada depicts the German society after the First World War, life in the Weimar Republic, and the challenges of modernity. First published in 1938, it’s named after the coachman Gustav Hartmann (1859–1938) from Berlin. In 1928, he drove his horse-drawn carriage all the way to Paris. It took him two months to get there. Accompanied by a newspaper reporter, this trip was supposed to be an act of protest against the decline of the cab trade and the increasing number of automobiles. Goebbels urged the author to change the ending, bringing it into line with the Nazis’ expectations. This new edition by Büchergilde Gutenberg claims to be the first to match Fallada’s original intention.
