Although essentially a book about a young woman, finding her place in the world, preoccupied with friends and romances and frankly rather irritated that the larger issues of politics and fascism are impinging on her social plans, Keun's novel is actually also a bold stance against Nazi policy, and the way in which her fellow Germans seemed only too willing to allow themselves to be controlled and manipulated. There are many examples of this in the novel, but the point is made particularly strongly with the incident of the man on the bicycle, who expresses anti-Hitler sentiment, and is taken away, never to be seen again. The onlookers make no effort to help him, and are almost competitive in their efforts to appear disgusted by his views and by his very existence. One woman even kicks his abandoned bicycle. Keun's novel, like her others written around the same time, demonstrates that the Nazi propaganda machine only worked so well because Germans were only to happy to go along with it.
Although the author claimed to identify most with Sanna, she is actually more like Sanna's brother, who is a published author. His books are not getting reprinted, because he is known to have anti-Fascist politics. His work is banned, and he knows that he will only get published again if he writes something obsequious that fawns over the Fuhrer. Keun's own position is much the same; her writings were not surprisingly banned in Germany, not only during the 1930s and 40s, but all the way through until the end of the twentieth century. She fell foul of the Nazis herself, and had to escape the country by faking her own suicide. Even when she returned decades later, it was under a false name. This demonstrates the point that she makes in this novel, about the support that Hitler actually had in the country, and her contention that he did not take over in a coup, but that he was voted into power by a population who felt aligned with his beliefs.
