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Fatherland is a bestselling 1992 thriller novel by the Englishmarker writer and journalist Robert Harris, which doubles as a work of alternate history. The novel is based on the premise of a world in which Nazi Germany was triumphant in World War II.

The book was a bestseller in Britain upon its release, selling three million copies and being translated into 25 different languages.

Plot summary

The story begins in Nazi Germany, the Third Reich in April 1964, in the week leading up to Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday. The plot follows detective Xavier March, an investigator working for the Kriminalpolizeimarker (Kripo), as he investigates the suspicious death of a high-ranking Nazi, Josef Bühler, in the Havelmarker, on the outskirts of Berlinmarker. As March uncovers more details he realises that he is caught up in a political scandal involving senior Nazi party officials, who are apparently being systematically murdered under staged circumstances. In fact, as soon as the body is identified, the Gestapomarker claims jurisdiction and orders the Kripo to close its investigation.

March meets with Charlie Maguire, a female American journalist who works for the New York Times, who is also determined to investigate the case. They both travel to Zürichmarker to investigate the private Swiss bank account of one of the murdered officials. Ultimately, the two uncover the horrific truth behind the staged murders. The Gestapomarker is eliminating the remaining officials who planned the Holocaust (of which the German people are not generally aware) at the Wannsee Conferencemarker of 1942. This is being done in order to safeguard an upcoming meeting of Hitler and President Joseph P. Kennedy by ensuring that the crimes of the Nazi regime are not revealed. Maguire heads for neutral Switzerlandmarker with the evidence, hoping to publish it in the New York Times. March, however, is denounced by his ten year-old son and apprehended by the Gestapo.

In the cellars of Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Straßemarker, March is severely tortured but does not reveal the location of Maguire. Kripo Chief Arthur Nebe stages a rescue, intending to track March as he meets up with Maguire at their rendezvous in Waldshut-Tiengenmarker on the Swiss / German border. March realises what is happening and heads for Auschwitzmarker, leading the authorities in the wrong direction.

The Gestapo catches up with March at the unmarked site of Auschwitz's completely dismantled extermination camp. Being sure that Maguire has crossed the border into Switzerland, he searches for some sign that the death camp was real. As the Gestapo agents swarm around him, March uncovers bricks in the undergrowth. Satisfied, he pulls out his Luger while leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Characters

Fictional

  • Xavier March. A detective in the Kriminalpolizeimarker and a Sturmbannführer (major) in the SSmarker, March (nicknamed "Zavi" by his friends) is a 41-year-old divorcé living in Berlin. He has one son, Pili, who lives with March's ex-wife, Klara. Both of March's grandfathers died in the First World War, his father was mortally injured serving in the Kaiserliche Marine, the Imperial German Navy, and his mother was killed in a bombing raid in 1944. March served on a U-Boat in the war and became a U-Boat captain in 1946. After the war, his marriage ended quickly. By 1964, March is unknowingly being watched by the Gestapomarker.
In the German version of the book the English name of the main character is translated to "Xaver März", nicknamed "Xavi".
  • Charlotte "Charlie" Maguire. A 25-year-old American woman, Maguire lives in Berlin reporting for The New York Times. Midway through the novel, she and March fall in love and begin a relationship.
  • Hermann Jost. A reluctant SS cadet, 19-year-old Jost discovers the corpse which triggers March's investigation. Midway through the novel, Jost disappears. The official explanation is that he has been sent to the Eastern Front.
  • Paul "Pili" March. The 10-year-old son of Xavier March, Pili lives with his mother and her partner in a bungalow in the suburbs of Berlin. Pili is a member of the Jungvolk — the junior section of the Hitler Youth for boys between the ages of 10 and 14. Later in the novel, Pili denounces his father to the Gestapo.
  • Max Jaeger. March's Kripo partner, Jaeger is 50 and lives with his wife and four daughters in Berlin. At the end of the novel, Jaeger drives the getaway car that rescues March, but it is revealed that Jaeger was the one who had betrayed March.
  • Walther Fiebes. Fiebes is a detective working in VB3, the sexual crimes division, along the corridor from March's office. Fiebes spends all of his time at work, investigating (Party-defined) sexual crimes cases including rape, adultery, and interracial relationships.
  • Rudolf "Rudi" Halder. March's wartime friend, Rudi is a historian working at the immense Central Archives, helping to compile an official history of the German military on the Eastern Front.
  • Karl Krebs. Krebs is a well-educated young officer in the Gestapo.


Historical personalities



The attendees of the Wannsee Conferencemarker are central to the plot, although most of them are already dead at the time of the novel's events.

The world of Fatherland

History

Throughout the novel, Harris gradually explains the historical development of the society. According to the novel's version of history, the German armies on the Eastern Front are stopped at the gates of Moscow at the end of 1941, as in our history. Defeated in battle but not demoralised, they launch a second major offensive into the Caucasus in 1942, cutting the flow of oil to the Red Army. The first point of divergence is that this second offensive is far more successful. With its armies immobilised for want of fuel, Joseph Stalin is forced to flee to the east, and a rump Sovietmarker government surrenders in 1943.

The second major point of divergence is that around the same time, German intelligence (in a way never explained) learns the Britishmarker have cracked the Enigma code, which is leading to the sinking of their submarines. They withdraw their submarines from the Atlantic temporarily and send false intelligence to lure the British fleet to destruction. The U-Boat campaign against the United Kingdommarker resumes, starving Britain into accepting a humiliating armistice in 1944. Winston Churchill, King George VI and other prominent British officials are forced into exile in Canadamarker. Edward VIII regains the throne at the helm of a pro-German puppet government.

Germany tests its first atom bomb in 1946, and fires a "V-3" missile that explodes above New York Citymarker, to demonstrate Germany's ability to attack the continental United States with long-range missiles. Following this demonstration of power, the United States signs a peace treaty with Germany. This results in the Third Reich being one of the two superpowers of the world, along with the US, which defeated Japanmarker, reflecting the actual history of the war, though a year later than in actual history.

Having achieved victory in Europe, Germany annexes Eastern Europe and most of the western Soviet Unionmarker into the Greater German Reich. Following the signing of the Treaty of Rome, Western Europe and Scandinavia are corralled into a pro-German trading bloc, the European Community. The surviving areas of the Soviet Union, still led by Stalin, become engaged in an endless guerrilla war with German forces in the Ural Mountainsmarker. Mounting casualties (at least 100,000 since 1960 stated in the novel and that the bodies have to be shipped back to Germany in the dead of night), have sapped the German military despite Hitler's earlier statement (quoted in the novel) about a perpetual war to keep the German people on their toes, like in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. By 1964, the United States and the Greater German Reich are caught in a Cold War and an arms race to develop more sophisticated nuclear weapons and space technology.

The novel takes place from April 14 – 20, 1964, as Germany prepares for Hitler's 75th birthday celebrations. A visit by the President of the United States, Joseph P. Kennedy, is planned as part of a gradual détente between the United States and the Greater German Reich. The Nazi hierarchy are hinted at being desperate for peace because the German economy has been staggering since the end of the war and the cost of fighting the war against the Russians has led to a situation whereby German citizens are encouraged to make even larger contributions than before to "Winter Relief". The Holocaust has been explained away to the satisfaction of many as merely the relocation of most of the Jewish population to the East into areas where communication and travel are still very poor, explaining why it is impossible for most of their relatives in the West to contact them. Despite this, many Germans are aware — or suspect — the government has eliminated the Jews.

Greater German Reich and international politics

Fatherland's 1964 Europe


The first few pages of Fatherland feature two maps; one of the city centre of Berlinmarker, and another showing the extent of the massively expanded Greater German Reich. The map shows Germany stretching from Alsace-Lorrainemarker (Westmark) in the west to the Ural Mountainsmarker and the lower Caucasus in the east.

The Reich has retained Austriamarker (now known as the "Ostmark"), the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (formerly part of Czechoslovakiamarker), and Luxembourgmarker (now named "Moselland"). In the East, Germany has annexed Polandmarker, and Russia west of the Uralsmarker has been divided into five Reichkommissariats: Ostland (Belarusmarker and the Baltic states), Ukraine, Muscovy (from Moscowmarker to the Urals), and Caucasus, along with Generalkommissariat Taurida (Southern Ukraine and the Crimeamarker).

Major cities in the expanded Reich include old German cities such as Hamburgmarker, Danzigmarker and Berlinmarker (the largest city in the world, with a population of 10 million in 1964), but also include newly-annexed cities such as Moscowmarker, Tiflismarker, Ufamarker, St. Petersburgmarker, Krakówmarker, Rovnomarker, Rigamarker, Melitopolmarker, Gotenburg (Simferopolmarker) and Theodorichshafen (former Sevastopolmarker).

Berlin has been extensively remodelled as Hitler's "capital of capitals," designed according to the wishes of Hitler and his top architect, Albert Speer. By 1964, the city boasts gargantuan Nazi monuments; the Great Hallmarker holds over 160,000 people at the highest Nazi ceremonies; the enormous Arch of Triumph is inscribed with the names of German soldiers killed in the two World Wars, and straddles the Grand Avenue, an immense boulevard lined with captured Sovietmarker artillery and towering statues of Nazi eagles. The Reichstagmarker and the Brandenburg Gatemarker are dwarfed by the vast, severe, granite civil buildings which dominate Berlin's city centre; the Grand Plaza, the sprawling Berlin railway station, Hitler's mammoth palace, the headquarters of the German Army, and the parliament of the powerless European Community.

The rest of Western Europe, excluding Switzerlandmarker, has been corralled by Germany into a European Community, formed from twelve nations: Norwaymarker, Swedenmarker (which has surrendered its policy of neutrality), Finlandmarker (which has absorbed Kareliamarker from Russia), Denmarkmarker, Great Britainmarker, Irelandmarker (which appears to have absorbed Northern Irelandmarker from Britain), Francemarker, Spainmarker (as in real history led by Franco), Portugalmarker, Belgiummarker, the Netherlandsmarker and Italymarker (it is unspecified if Mussolini is still in control). Other countries of Fatherland's Europe include Croatiamarker, Greecemarker, Romaniamarker (which has recovered Bessarabiamarker from the old USSR), a greatly expanded Hungarymarker (which has absorbed Transylvania from neighbouring Romania, as well as the wartime puppet state of Slovakiamarker and possibly still led by the Arrow Cross Party), Bulgariamarker (which appears to have annexed Central Macedonia and East Macedonia and Thrace from Greece), Albaniamarker, Serbiamarker, Icelandmarker, and Turkeymarker.

A virtually powerless "European Parliamentmarker" is based in Berlin. At the European Parliament building, the flags of the member states are dwarfed by a swastika flag twice the size of the other flags. The nations of Fatherland's EC, despite being nominally free under their own governments and leaders (such as Franco and Edward VIII), are closely watched by Germany. The military forces of the "free" nations of Europe are only just sufficient to police their own territory and their colonies. European nations are under constant surveillance by Berlin and are subordinate to Germany in all but name.

Switzerlandmarker has not been annexed by the Reich and is not a member of the European Community. By the time the Reich had turned its eyes to it, the stalemate of the Cold War was setting in, and Switzerland had become a convenient neutral spot for American and German intelligence agents to spy on each other. Consequently, Switzerland is the last true democracy in Europe.

The novel also makes many references to the world outside of Europe. The United Statesmarker is locked in a Cold War with the Greater German Reich. Since the end of the war in 1946, both the US and Germany have been racing against each other to develop sophisticated military, nuclear, and space technologies. Japanmarker is said to have been defeated by the U.S. after the United States detonated two atomic bombs on Japanese territory. Japan seems to have recovered quickly since its defeat and Tokyomarker is the host for the 1964 Olympic Games. The United Statesmarker is said to have not participated in the Games since 1936 , but is expected to in 1964.

Chinamarker is a weak independent state — a passing reference hints at China being ruled by a harsh government — and Sino-German relations do not seem particularly strong. A greatly-reduced Russianmarker rump state exists, with its capital at Omskmarker. The United States supplies Russia with weapons and funds, which are used by the Russians to wage an endless guerrilla war with German forces in the Ural Mountainsmarker. Although German propaganda plays down the war in the east, the death toll on the Eastern Front is severe. Africa and the rest of Asia are still controlled by the old European colonial empires. South America is not referred to in the novel.

The world in 1964, according to the novel.
A point left unclear is whether the Holocaust was confined to Nazi-occupied Europe or was extended to the rest of the world, particularly Palestine. In the novel, the Nazis' Holocaust has never been revealed, and instead the Holodomor - the massive planned famines of the 1930s, in the Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR - is known throughout the world as "Stalin's Holocaust".

The British Empire appears to be a strong entity and retains its territories in Africa and Asia, although Canadamarker, Australia and New Zealandmarker have split from the Empire and are closely allied to the United States. Winston Churchill and Elizabeth Windsor, who claims the British Crown from Edward VIII, reside in Canada, speaking out against the Greater German Reich, German-controlled Europe, and the puppet British regime. However, Great Britain is afforded a great deal of respect from the German Reich as its Empire and historical institutions were greatly admired by Adolf Hitler and German society in general even in the years before World War II.

The novel does not make references to the League of Nations or to a possible existence of the United Nations. The International Red Cross exists in the world of Fatherland.

The novel describes that since the end of the war between Germany and the United States in 1946, a nuclear stalemate has developed, which seems to overshadow international relations. Various references in the book suggest that Germany is paranoid of a nuclear war. New German buildings are constructed with mandatory fallout shelters; the Reichsarchiv (German National Archive) claims to have been built to withstand a direct missile hit. Despite the catastrophically high death toll on the Eastern Front, the German military is afraid to use nuclear weapons in case they provoke an American nuclear attack on the Reich. It is not explicitly stated whether Germany and the United States are the only nuclear powers in the world of Fatherland.

Nazi society

In the novel, Western Europe has been left relatively untouched by the Reich, as Germany concentrates on the conquest of what is left of the USSR. The United Kingdommarker holds on to the remains of its empire (except Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which refused to recognize Edward VIII's puppet government and apparently recognize Elizabeth II as head of state) and Germany relies on the British to keep the peace in Africa and Asia.

Although Hitler has taken some steps to soften his image, no substantive changes have taken place in the Nazi regime's basic character. The Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, the legal bases for Hitler's dictatorship, still remain in effect. The press, radio and the new medium of television are very tightly controlled. Dissenters are dealt with very harshly, often being sent to concentration camps.

In the novel, the bedrock of Nazi ideology is still the policy of blaming subversives for social problems. Homosexuality, incest, and interracial relationships (particularly between "Aryans" and Slav) have joined Jews (see anti-semitism) and communism to become the new scapegoats for the Nazi Party. The Nazi view of other peoples has also been forced to change. With Europe and Russia under German control, the Nazi Party appears to have spent the early 1960s blaming the United Statesmarker for causing Germany's problems. Nazi propaganda has previously depicted America as a land of corruption, degeneracy and poverty. However, as the diplomatic meeting between Hitler and Kennedy nears, German propaganda is forced to change its image of America to a more positive view. In 1964, the Nazi Party no longer has any internal or external enemies left to fight and as a consequence, the very structure of Nazi society is starting to fall apart.

Despite its ideological and moral decline, Germany enjoys a very high standard of living, with its citizens living off the high-quality produce of their European satellite states and freed from physical labour by thousands of Polish, Czech and Ukrainian slaves. The European nations produce high-quality consumer goods for German citizens while also providing services, such as the SSmarker academy at Oxford Universitymarker and German holiday resorts in Spain, France, and Greece. Products from across Europe and their colonial empires flood into Germany, providing German citizens with a wide choice of high-quality goods. Hitler's crabbed, banal personal tastes in art and music have become the norm for society, creating a stagnant and boringly repetitive cultural atmosphere.

The social structure of Nazi Germany has changed considerably from the 1940s. Military service is still compulsory, but recruits have a choice of service. Eastern Europe has been colonised by German settlers (although local partisan resistance movements are very strong) and the German population has soared as a result of Nazi emphasis on childbirth. Increasing numbers of Nazi officials are university-educated bureaucrats. The SSmarker serves as the country's police force, and concentration camps are still in existence for political dissidents, occasionally given staged inspections by the International Red Cross.

According to the main characters, however, German society in the early 1960s is becoming more and more rebellious. An increasing number of people have no memory of the instability that paved the way for Hitler's rise to power. Student protests, particularly against the war in the Urals, American and British cultural influence (including the rise of The Beatles' popularity, already denounced in the official German press), and growing pacifism are all found in Nazi society. Jazz music is still popular and Germany claims to have come up with a version which is free from "negro influence". In spite of the general repressiveness, the Beatles' real-life Hamburg engagements have happened here as well. Germany appears to be under constant attack by terrorist groups, with officials assassinated and civilian airliners bombed in-flight. Religion is still officially discouraged by the state, and the Hitler Youth is compulsory for all children. Universities are centres of student dissent, and the White Rose movement is once again active. The Nazis continue with their policies for women, encouraging women to remain in the home and bring up many children. Nazi organisations such as Kraft durch Freude still exist and fulfil their original roles. A sprawling transport network covers the entire Reich, including vast autobahnen and railways in the manner of the actually proposed Breitspurbahn system, carrying immense trains.

Technology

The level of technology in Fatherland is much the same as in the actual 1960s, and in some respects, is more advanced. The German military makes use of jet aircraft, nuclear submarines, and aircraft carriers, while civilian technology has also advanced considerably. Jet airliners, televisions, hair-dryers, modern cars, and even photocopiers are used in Germany.

The novel makes references to the space programmes of the United Statesmarker and the Third Reich, both of whom appear to possess sophisticated space technology. Judging by a reference made by Maguire, both the United States and the Third Reich launched the first artificial satellites into orbit shortly after the war, from White Sandsmarker and Peenemündemarker respectively. The extent of space technology and exploration in the world of Fatherland is unknown.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

A TV film of the book was made in 1994 by HBO, starring Rutger Hauer as March and Miranda Richardson as Maguire. The film explicitly stated that the historical timeline diverged with the German defeat of the Allied D-Day invasion in June 1944.

Eisenhower, it stated, retired in disgrace and the loss of life was so great that the American public turned its back on the war in Europe and focused on Japan, thus allowing Germany to regroup and defeat the United Kingdom. It also states that in 1964, the 85-year-old Joseph Stalin is still alive and leading the Russian forces against Germany.

Although the basic plot remains the same, the 1994 film differs in many ways from the book. As it is typical for an adaption characters and plot sidelines are omissed, for example the new boyfriend of March's ex wife. March and Maguire seem to be older than in descripted in the novel, and they do not have a sexual relationship. In the book there is a Gestapo record on March that shows his distance to the regime very clearly and becomes dangerous to him; Maguire is decidedly against president Joseph Kennedy whom she considers to be an antisemite. In the film those political backgrounds of the main characters lack.

The most important alteration may be the way how the Holocaust is revealed to the main characters and to the American public. In the novel it is March who has an old and genuine interest in the fate of the Jews and who finds out the truth throughout Luther's documents hidden in a Berlin airport. In the film Maguire gets the documents from Luther's mistress who does not know about Luther's death and believes that she will later go with him to America. The mistriss is radically antisemite and reveals full of joy the murdering of the Jews to a shocked Maguire. When Maguire tells this to March in a park the patriotic March in the beginning does not want to believe the story but the documents, with photographs of murdered people, convince him.

While the novel lets Maguire escape to Switzerland with the documents she is going to publish in America, in the film she passes them to a colleague. In the film the American president is actually visiting Germany (in the book the visit is scheduled only for september). Hitler, never appearing in the book personally, waits for Kennedy in front of a huge German mass, but Maguires manages to stop Kennedy's car and hand over the documents. It is shown how Kennedy is shocked seeing the photographs. Then a loudspeaker tells the crowd (and Hitler) that Kennedy is returning to America immediately.

March is killed when trying to take his son with him to America, not committing suicide on the grounds of Auschwitz to avoid being recaptured by Gestapo. In the end a voiceover from March's son tells that the revelation of the Holocaust made the Nazi regime collapse and that Maguire was captured by Gestapo.

Some more disparities:
  • March occasionally has a pipe in his mouth instead of being a permanent cigarette smoker.
  • In the film, Western and Southern Europe is also annexed by the Reich, and the Reich is now known as "Germania". Unlike the novel the German Border with the Soviet Union is shown to be the same as it was in 1941 before Operation Barbarossa (apart from the Baltic States which are part of the Reich). This coincides with the film's story of the war ending in mid-1944 (see below), by which time German forces had been mostly pushed out of Soviet territory. Exactly how the Germans have been able to hold the powerful Soviet armies at this position for a further 20 years without making peace is unclear.
  • In a historical introduction set at the beginning, the film sets an Allied defeat during the Normandy landings of 1944 as its point of departure from normal History. In the book there are three points of departure from the normal timeline: a successful German offensive against the Soviet oilfields of the Caucasus in 1942, the changing of the Enigma codes and the success of the U-boat offensive against Britain in 1944 and the launch of a long-range missile to explode over New York (with the implicit threat of a nuclear attack) in 1946.
  • The film starts out showing Jost seeing Bühler's body dumped, not how March inspects the crime scene. Also other episodes that are told in the book to March by the witnesses are shown immediately when they happen in the plot. The murder of Luther (Luther's name is changed in the film from "Martin" to his middle name of "Franz," probably to avoid audience confusion with the religious reformer Martin Luther, or indeed, for U.S. audiences, Martin Luther King) in the book, which takes place on the steps of the Great Hall, is in the film reduced to a shoot-out in a subway station.
  • The section of the novel where March and Maguire travel to Switzerlandmarker to trace a bank account opened by Luther is absent from the film version.
  • SS-Cadet Jost is murdered in the film to ensure his silence, whereas in the book it is said that he was transferred to a combat unit on the frontlines with the Waffen-SS. Given the context in which Jost's "transfer" is described, however, most readers would assume that he was murdered by Globus to derail the investigation. In the film March told Jost that he knew his mother.
  • Charlie Maguire is just arriving in Germany in the film, but in the book she had been there for over six months.


The novel was also serialised on BBC radio, starring Anton Lesser as March and Angeline Ball as Charlie Maguire. It was dramatised, produced and directed by John Dryden and first broadcast on 9 July] 1997. The ending is changed slightly to allow for the limitations of the medium: the entire Auschwitz death camp is discovered in an abandoned state, and Charlie Maguire's passage into Switzerland definitely occurs.

Release details

  • 1992, UK, Hutchinson (ISBN 0-09-174827-5), Pub date 7 May 1992, hardback (First edition)
  • 1993, UK, Arrow (ISBN 0-09-926381-5), Pub date 12 May 1993, paperback


See also



References

  • Hersh, Seymour. The Dark Side of Camelot. Back Bay Books, 1998.
  • Leamer, Laurence. The Kennedy Men. Harper, 2002.
  • Renehan, Edward. The Kennedys at War, . Doubleday, 2002.


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