Der Untertan (The Loyal Subject), written before World War I but published in full only in 1918, is Heinrich Mann’s most celebrated novel and one of the great political satires in the German language. It follows Diederich Hessling, a cowardly, bullying paper manufacturer who thrives under the Wilhelmine system by embracing authority, conformity, and nationalist bluster — a portrait of the type that would later enable fascism.
Heinrich Mann — Thomas Mann’s elder brother — was a sharper political critic than his famous sibling, and Der Untertan remains alarmingly relevant. Download this free public-domain EPUB to read one of German literature’s most penetrating indictments of authoritarianism.