Fatherland (novel)

• Xavier March. A detective in the Kriminalpolizei with the concurrent honorary rank of Sturmbannführer (Major) in the SS, March (nicknamed "Zavi" by his friends) is a 42-year-old divorcé living in Berlin. He has one son, Pili (Paul), who lives with March's ex-wife, Klara. March's father died in 1929 from wounds sustained while he was serving in the Imperial German Navy during the Great War, and his mother was killed in a Royal Air Force bombing raid in 1942. March commanded a U-Boat in World War II and was decorated for bravery and promoted. He married his nurse after the war, but the marriage steadily deteriorated afterward. His military service helped him rise through the police ranks to detective. By 1964, however, he is secretly under Gestapo surveillance since it correctly perceives him to have an intense dislike of the Nazi regime. For example, March refuses to donate to the 'winter-relief', shows "insufficient enthusiasm" for his son's involvement in the Jungvolk, has rebuffed all incentives to join the Nazi Party, tells "jokes about the Party" and, worst of all, has shown some curiosity about what happened to a Jewish family that used to live in his present apartment.
• Charlotte "Charlie" Maguire. A 25-year-old American journalist, Maguire has been assigned to Berlin by the fictional news service World European Features. Midway through the novel, she and March fall in love and begin a relationship. Maguire comes from a prominent Irish-American political family but is something of a renegade. The daughter of a US State Department official and German actress who left with him before the war, Maguire speaks fluent German without an accent.[3]
• Hermann Jost. A 19-year-old cadet in an SS military academy, Jost was out running when he discovered the corpse that triggered March's investigation. March is certain that Jost witnessed more than he is willing to disclose and at first believes him to be covering up a homosexual relationship with a fellow cadet, which is punishable by the death penalty. March, however, persuades Jost to admit the truth: Jost witnessed the dumping of the body and recognised SS General Odilo Globocnik at the scene. Midway through the novel, Globocnik smugly tells March, "It's over. You have no witness". March learns that Jost has been sent to a punishment battalion in occupied Russia that likely resulted in his death.
• Paul "Pili" March. The ten-year-old son of March, Pili lives with his mother and her partner in a bungalow in the suburbs of Berlin. Pili is a fully-indoctrinated member of the Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth for boys between 10 and 14. Later in the novel, Pili denounces his father to the Gestapo, all the while unaware of what it will really do to him.
• Max Jaeger. March's friend and Kripo partner, Jaeger is 50; lives with his wife, Hannelore, and four daughters in Berlin; and is disinclined to question 'the system'. At the end of the novel, he drives the getaway car that rescues March, but it is revealed that he had been informing against March since before the novel began and that March's "rescue" was arranged by the Gestapo as a ruse to find Maguire.
• Walther Fiebes. A detective working in VB3, the Kripo's sexual crimes division, along the corridor from March's office, Fiebes is a man with a deeply prurient nature and relishes his work investigating sexual crimes, including rape, adultery and interracial relationships between "Aryan" women and their Slavic servants.
• Rudolf "Rudi" Halder. March's friend and a crewman on his U-boat, Rudi is now a historian working at the immense Reich Central Archives and helping to compile an official history of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front.
• Karl Krebs. An officer in the Gestapo, Krebs is an example of the younger, university-trained SS-men hated by Globocnik.

Harris, in the Author's notes of the novel, explains that many characters are based on the real people with the same names and that the biographical details are indeed correct until 1942. Afterward, the narrative is fictional.[2] The following descriptions follow what is in the novel.

• Odilo Globocnik. An aging Obergruppenführer in the Gestapo and right-hand man of Reichsführer-SS Reinhard Heydrich, nicknamed "Globus". He is a principal antagonist of the book who is personally responsible for the assassinations of the Wannsee officials. After March's apprehension by the Gestapo, Globus takes over March's interrogation and administers several brutal beatings.
• Arthur Nebe. The chief of the Kripo, Nebe is an old man in 1964 and has a sumptuous office in Berlin.[4] Initially appearing to support March's investigation for political reasons, despite the Gestapo's involvement, Nebe eventually ascertains the threat posed to the Reich's international standing by March's investigations and weaves a ruse to March to make him reveal the whereabouts of the evidence.
• Josef Bühler. A secretary and deputy governor to the Nazi-controlled General Government in Kraków.
• Wilhelm Stuckart. A Nazi Party lawyer, official and a state secretary in the German Interior Ministry.
• Martin Luther. An advisor to Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop,
• Reinhard Heydrich. The current head of the SS and is considered a likely successor to Hitler, Heydrich is a principal antagonist of the book although he never appears in person. He ordered the assassinations of the Wannsee officials to eradicate all first-hand evidence of the Final Solution. (In real life, he was assassinated on 4 June 1942 in Prague, but in the novel, the assassination failed.)

In each case, the description after the name describes how the characters appear in the novel, again by following reality until 1942.[2]

• Adolf Hitler. The elderly and increasingly-reclusive Führer of the Greater German Reich, since the end of the war, Hitler has toned down his image by eschewing his uniform in favour of civilian clothing. His speeches are now at a rate that is calm, rather than furious.
• Heinrich Himmler. Dying in a plane crash in 1962, Himmler was succeeded as Reichsführer-SS by Heydrich.[5]
• Hermann Göring. Died in 1951, years before the book storyline, of an undisclosed illness.[5] Berlin's international airport is named after him.
• Joseph Goebbels: still alive in 1964 and remaining Minister of Propaganda. His children have become high-ranking Nazi officials.
• Winston Churchill. The former British Prime Minister, Churchill fled the country upon Britain's peace agreement with the Reich and now lives in Canada.[6]
• George VI. The former King of the United Kingdom, George VI fled to exile in Canada and lived there until his death in 1952 and remained King of the dominions and the British Empire.
• Princess Elizabeth. Also fled to and now resides in Canada. Elizabeth, since the death of her father in 1952, has been a pretender to the British throne and is Queen of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The United States and Latin America recognise her as the rightful Queen of the United Kingdom.
• Edward VIII. Originally reigned as the King of the United Kingdom from January to December 1936, he is restored to the throne after the surrender of Britain. He and his wife, Wallis Simpson, reign as Emperor and Empress of the British Empire.[7]
• Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.. The President of the United States.
• Charles Lindbergh. The US Ambassador to Germany.
• Francisco Franco. The caudillo of Spain, he maintains close friendships with many Nazis such as Luther.[8]

"Also referenced but not by name are the Beatles, whose recent appearances in Hamburg and great popularity with young Germans have been condemned in the German press.[7]

The people in the book who are named as attending the Wannsee Conference all did so in real life. Some are central to the plot, but the others had already died before the events of the novel.[2]

The world in 1964 in the novel Fatherland where the Germans won World War II. Germany and its sphere of influence are in red; the United States and its sphere of influence in blue; China in yellow

Throughout the novel, Harris gradually explains, in a fictional backstory, the developments that allowed Germany to prevail in World War II. The author explains in the Author's notes that except for the backstories of the fictitious characters, the narrative describes reality up to 1942, after which it is fictional.[2] A significant early point of divergence is that Heydrich survived the assassination attempt by Czech fighters in May 1942 (he was killed in reality) and later became head of the SS. Another significant divergence is the political career of Kennedy, who was, in real life, disgraced in 1940 during the Battle of Britain. In the novel, for an unexplained reason, his political fortunes did not suffer or possibly recovered after the German victory, and he eventually became US President. The Nazi offensives on the Eastern Front ultimately push back the Soviet forces, with the Case Blue operation succeeding in capturing the Caucasus and cutting the Red Army off from its petroleum reserves by 1943.[6] The Nazis also found that the Enigma machine code had been broken. A massive U-Boat campaign against Britain then succeeded in starving the British into surrender by 1944.[6]

In the novel, King George VI, the British royal family and the Prime Minister Winston Churchill fled into exile in Canada.[6] Edward VIII regained the British throne soon afterwards, with Wallis Simpson as his queen.[9][7][6] The US defeated Japan in 1945 and used nuclear weapons, as in real life.[6] Germany tested its first atomic bomb in 1946 and fired a non-nuclear "V-3" missile above New York City to demonstrate its ability to attack the Continental United States with long-range missiles.[6] Thus, after a peace treaty in 1946, the US and Germany are the novel's two superpower opponents in the Cold War.[note 4][6] There is a reference to a brutal regime having power in China but no reference to either its ideology or whether it is headed by Mao Zedong or somebody else. Tibet remains independent.

The fictional backstory describes that after it achieved victory, Germany reorganises Europe east of Poland into Reichskommissariats. After the signing of the Treaty of Rome, Western Europe and Scandinavia are corralled into a pro-German trade bloc, the European Community. By 1964, the United States and the Greater German Reich are involved in a Cold War.[6] The only exception is Switzerland, which retains its neutral status.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union has died down into an endless guerrilla war in the Ural Mountains and Siberia.[10] Mounting casualties (at least 100,000 since 1960, according to the novel[10]) have sapped the German military despite Hitler's statement, which is quoted in the novel, about a perpetual war to keep the German people on their toes. Dead German soldiers are returned to Germany in the middle of the night.[10]

The action of the novel takes place from 14 to 20 April 1964, as Germany prepares for Hitler's 75th birthday celebrations on the latter date. A visit by US President Kennedy is planned as part of a gradual détente between the United States and Germany. The novel suggests that the Nazi hierarchy is eager for peace since its efforts to settle the conquered East are failing because of continued resistance from Polish and Soviet partisan movements. Moreover, the Nazis failed to instil their ideology in the younger generation; many young German turn away from the regime though active opposition to the regime is limited.[11]

The Holocaust has been explained away officially as merely the relocation of the Jews into areas of Eastern Europe, where communications and transport networks are still very poor. However, many Germans suspect the government to have eliminated the Jews but are generally unconcerned or too afraid of the authorities to say or to do anything. Some surviving Jews have escaped to the Soviet Union and provided testimony of the extermination efforts there. Nazi authorities decry Bolshevik propaganda, but the outside world is aware of the Holocaust. The American president, however, remains neutral to avoid further damaging relations and refers only to vague "human rights violations" that he wishes to investigate when he visits Berlin.

The end suggests that the plans of both Kennedy and Hitler might be seriously derailed by the documents obtained by the protagonists and successfully smuggled out of Germany by Charlie. Their publication gives concrete hard evidence on the systematic murder of the Jews and might cause the cancellation of the Hitler–Kennedy summit and sabotage the plans for a German–American détente on which the Nazis were counting for economic recovery. The documents might also cause Kennedy to lose re-election in November 1964. The novel does not mention who the opposing candidate is and the policies that the candidate supports, but it might be a more anti-Nazi Cold Warrior.

Fatherland's 1964 Europe

The first few pages of the novel feature two maps: one of the city centre of Berlin and another of the extent of the massively-expanded Greater German Reich, which stretches from Alsace-Lorraine ("Westmark") in the west to the Ural Mountains and lower Caucasus in the east.[12]

The Reich has retained Austria (now "Ostmark"), Slovenia, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and Luxembourg (now "Moselland"). In the East, Poland is still ruled as a colony by the General Government, and Soviet territory west of the Urals has been divided into five Reichkommissariats: Ostland (Belarus and the Baltic states), Ukraine with Odessa, Muscovy (from Moscow to the Urals), and Caucasus, along with Generalkommissariat Taurida (Southern Ukraine and the Crimea). There is also mention of a German naval base in Trondheim, Norway, where the Reich's nuclear submarines are based.[7]

Berlin has been remodelled as Hitler's "capital of capitals" and is designed according to the wishes of Hitler and his top architect, Albert Speer,[note 5] and is the world's largest city, with a population of ten million, where the virtually-powerless "European Parliament" is based.[13]

In the novel, the rest of Western and Northern Europe, excluding Switzerland and Vatican City, has been corralled by Germany into a European Community, which is made up of Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. The map provided shows Andorra was annexed by Spain and San Marino by Italy, and Liechtenstein was absorbed directly into Nazi Germany, similar to Austria. Eastern Europe is dominated by Germany and includes Croatia, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania and Serbia. The European Community, despite having nominally-free nations under their own governments and leaders, are presumably only just able to police their own territory, and they are under constant watch by Berlin and are subordinate to Germany in all but name. The German flag over the headquarters is twice as big as those of the other nations.[13]

The Reich had turned its eyes to Switzerland and sought to absorb its German-speaking cantons, but the stalemate of the Cold War settled in. Switzerland thus became a convenient neutral spot for diplomacy and for American and German intelligence agents to spy on each other and is the last state in Europe with a foreign policy that is independent of Berlin. In the backstory, the United States is locked in a Cold War with Germany. Since the end of the war in 1946, both superpowers have developed nuclear and space technologies. Japan was defeated by the United States by the detonation of the atomic bomb. The United States is said to have not participated in the Olympic Games since 1936 but is expected to return in 1964. The novel refer to the League of Nations or to the possible existence of the United Nations.

A passing remark hints at China being ruled by a harsh government, but its precise nature and its leader ate not mentioned. A greatly-reduced Soviet rump state, consisting of Siberia, the Russian Far East and Central Asia, still exists, with its capital in Omsk. The US supplies weapons and funds, which allow the Russians to tie down German forces in the Urals. Although German propaganda plays down the war on the Eastern Front, the war there is taking its toll.[10][note 6]

Canada, Australia and New Zealand are now allied with the United States, and all of Latin America (excluding the pro-German "neutral" Argentina) are pro-American satellites. Princess Elizabeth resides in Canada and is recognised by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and the United States as the rightful queen of the United Kingdom. Winston Churchill also lives in Canada.

The novel describes that since the end of the war, a stalemate has developed between Germany and the United States, which seems to overshadow international relations. New German buildings are constructed with mandatory bomb shelters, and the Reichsarchiv (German National Archive) claims to have been built to withstand a direct missile hit.[14][15]

In the novel, Germany concentrates on the containment of the Soviet Union. Hitler has taken some steps to soften his image over the years and now usually wears civilian clothes, instead of the party uniform. Nonetheless, no substantive changes have taken place in the regime's basic character. The Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933, the legal bases for Hitler's dictatorship, remain in effect. The press, the radio and the television are tightly controlled. Dissenters are still sent to concentration camps. Conditions in the camps are reputed to be as harsh as they were in the 1930s and 1940s, but the International Red Cross is occasionally given staged inspections.[16]

In the novel, the bedrock of Nazi ideology is still the policy of blaming subversive and minority groups for Germany's economic and social problems. Jews, communists, homosexuals and interracial relationships (particularly between "Aryans" and Slavs) continue to be scapegoats for the Nazis.[17] Propaganda has previously depicted the United States to be corrupt, degenerate and poor. However, the imminent diplomatic meeting between Hitler and Kennedy forces German propaganda to shift to a more positive image of the United States and its people.

Despite its ideological and moral decline, Germany has a high standard of living, with its citizens living off the produce of their European satellite states and freed from physical labour by thousands of Polish, Czech and Ukrainian workers. The European nations export high-quality consumer goods to Germany (noted imports are domestic electronics from Britain) and also provide services, such as an SS academy at Oxford University and imported domestic staff. Hitler's personal tastes in art and music remain the norm for German society.

Military service is still compulsory.[18] Eastern Europe has been colonised by German settlers although local partisan resistance movements are still active, and the German population has soared as a result of Nazi emphasis on childbirth. As the first generation of Nazi leaders, which founded the party and came to power alongside Hitler, begins to die off, Nazi officials are increasingly well-educated technocrats in the mould of Albert Speer. The police force (the Orpo, or uniformed police, and the Kripo, or criminal investigation bureau) is integrated with the SS, with police officers having honorary SS ranks.[note 7]

According to the main characters, however, German society in the early 1960s is becoming more and more rebellious. The younger generation has 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 and growing pacifism are all found in society. Jazz music is still popular, and the German government claims to have come up with a version which is free from "Negroid influence". In spite of the general repressiveness, the Beatles' real-life Hamburg engagements have happened here and already been denounced in the state-run press.[7] Germany is under constant attack by terrorist groups, with officials assassinated and civilian airliners bombed in-flight. Christianity is suppressed, and Nazi youth organisations are compulsory for all children. Universities are centres of student dissent, and the White Rose movement is once again active.[11]

The Nazis continue with their policies for women by encouraging them to remain in the home and to bring up many children (that emphasises the first two elements of Kinder, Küche, Kirche), but women are clearly present in the Nazi bureaucracy. Nazi organisations such as Kraft durch Freude still exist and fulfill their original roles such as providing holidays to resort areas under German control. German citizens are still encouraged to contribute to the Winterhilfswerk. A sprawling transport network covers the entire Reich, including a vast autobahn and railway network in the manner of the real-life proposed Breitspurbahn system, which carries immense trains.

The level of technology in the novel's 1960s is much the same as in real life. The German military uses jet aircraft, nuclear submarines,[7] and aircraft carriers; civilian technology has also advanced considerably. Jet airliners,[19] televisions,[20] hair-dryers, coffee machines and photocopiers[21] are used in Germany.

Both the United States and Germany appear to have sophisticated space technology. Germany's space program is based at the old rocket-testing facility at Peenemünde, on the Baltic coast. The extent of space exploration is not specified, but a conversation between March and Maguire suggests that German is justified in boasting about being ahead of the US in the Space Race.[10]

A TV film of the book was made in 1994 by HBO, starring Rutger Hauer as March and Miranda Richardson as Maguire for which she received a Golden Globe Award in 1995 for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV. Rutger Hauer's performance was also nominated, as well as the film itself. The film also received an Emmy nomination in 1995 for Special Visual Effects.[25]

In January 2009 German movie company UFA planned another film adaption of the novel.[26] By March 2012, Dennis Gansel and Matthias Pachte had teamed up to write the screenplay, with Gansel as a candidate for director.[27]

The novel was 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 was first broadcast on 9 July 1997. The ending is changed slightly to allow for the limitations of the medium: the entire Auschwitz camp is discovered in an abandoned state, and Maguire's passage into Switzerland is confirmed to have occurred.

The unabridged audiobook version of the novel was released by Random House Audio in 1993, read by Werner Klemperer, a refugee from Nazi Germany who is best remembered for his two-time Emmy Award-winning role of bumbling Colonel Klink on the 1960s TV series Hogan's Heroes.

• Harris, Robert (2000). Archangel; Fatherland. Cresset Editions. ISBN 0-09187-209-X.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) Although this cited edition is an omnibus volume of two novels, the page numbering is apparently the same as in the earlier single editions. The 2012 edition is numbered differently.