Alone in Berlin - Hans Fallada

Published in Germany in 1947 and in the UK in 2010 this fictionalised account, based on a true story, of an ordinary German couple and their campaign against Nazism in the early 1940's.  Translated into English 62 years after it was first published in Germany the story has also been dramatised a few times but not yet in English.
As WWII moves further away from us and the number of people with any personal experience of those times diminishes it's likely that a more balanced view of he period will emerge.  History is always written with some bias and usually by the victor (or one presented as victor however precarious or accurate the presentation is) so its important to consider all sides of a story and this book has been a good start for me.  It took me to a Berlin of deprivation and fear where the tacitly understood hierarchy of society has turned on it head and upstart thuggish children have the power of life and death over their formerly respected neighbours.  Life seems to have become cheap, a formerly well ordered society is disordered and petty thieving and delight in violence is disguised and excused as political necessity.
The collection of people you meet in this story are from a wide range of Berlin society, Fallada brings them to life using them skilfully to reveal different perspectives on the story he is telling.
One of the best books I have read for a long time, can't recommend it highly enough.