Jeder stirbt für sich allein (1962 film)

Jeder stirbt für sich allein
Courtroom scene
Directed by	Falk Harnack
Screenplay by	Robert A. Stemmle Falk Harnack
Based on	Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada
Starring	Alfred Schieske Edith Schultze-Westrum
Music by	Peter Sandloff
Cinematography	Heinz Pehlke
Production company	Sender Freies Berlin
Release date	19 July 1962 (1962-07-19) (West Germany)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Jeder stirbt für sich allein (Everyone Dies Alone) is a 1962 West German made for television political drama film based on a best-selling novel by Hans Fallada, itself based on the true story of a working class couple, Otto and Elise Hampel, who committed acts of civil disobedience against the government of Nazi Germany and were executed. Directed by former German Resistance member Falk Harnack—whose brother, sister-in-law and cousins were executed during the Nazi regime—it was the first screen adaptation of Fallada's novel.

The teleplay was adapted by Robert A. Stemmle from the Hans Fallada novel Every Man Dies Alone. Though written in 1947, it was virtually unknown to the English-speaking world until it was translated into English in 2009. The German edition achieved early success, spawning translations into Russian, Polish, Romanian, Czech, Norwegian, French, and Italian. The 2009 English version soon became a bestseller in both England and the United States, bringing more international success and translations into Hebrew and Dutch.

In addition to the 1962 teleplay, there have been three subsequent screen adaptations of Fallada's novel: a television miniseries entitled Jeder stirbt für sich allein broadcast in East Germany in 1970; a feature film in 1975, released in English in 1976 as Everyone Dies Alone; and a television miniseries in the Czech Republic in 2004.

The 1962 teleplay, the first screen adaptation of Fallada's book, was directed by Falk Harnack, who had been active in the German Resistance against the Nazism and the Third Reich. His own arrest and trial led to acquittal, but several members of his family and many friends were arrested and executed, including his brother, Arvid and his sister-in-law, Mildred Harnack, a translator and professor of literature, who had visited Fallada in 1934.