Fatherland

As a work of speculative fiction, Fatherland creates an alternative history in which Germany was victorious in World War II. The novel’s alternative reality reimagines Germany’s boundaries: The country and Berlin didn’t split after the war, and Nazi Germany has subsumed other countries, including Poland. While this German state is fabricated, it has roots in real historical events and follows real historical figures.

In Harris’s 1964, Germany continues to fight two wars: one in the east with Russia to defend the land they took during World War II, and another with the US, a cold war in which each side threatens to use nuclear weapons. Hitler succeeded in removing and executing Jewish people throughout German territory, and he then created laws and requirements for marriage and childbirth to ensure the continuation of his “Aryan race.” To strengthen it, Nazi policies persist, and citizenship (and even the right to life) depends on one’s genetic line. The rule of law determines lifestyle, and deviation from Nazi ideals often results in severe punishment. For example, the government has criminalized gay sexual relationships between men and sends those caught to labor camps or the frontlines of the ongoing war with Russia. The people must follow and revere the Führer. However, the lack of free will has resulted in corruption at every level of government and society. At the center of Germany’s empire is Berlin, where Xavier March questions the deeply rooted, powerful, and corrupt Schutzstaffel (SS), which controls German citizens through fear of the Gestapo. Children, including March’s son, are indoctrinated into the Nazi Party from a young age, swearing fealty to Hitler through the Pimpfs and the Hitler Youth.

The conspiracy that March uncovers centers on the Wannsee Conference. The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of Nazi and government leaders to discuss and make decisions about how to carry out the Final Solution, Hitler’s order to execute Jewish prisoners in Germany and its annexed territories. The officials “did not deliberate whether such a plan should be undertaken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime” (“Wannsee Conference and the ‘Final Solution.’” Holocaust Encyclopedia). After the end of World War II, the details of the conference became public, sparking a debate at the Nuremburg Trials about who would bear guilt for the atrocities committed during the war, when Hitler himself delivered the command.

Because of the alternative history of Fatherland, the events in the novel play out differently: Germany emerged victorious after World War II, and the events of the Wannsee Conference were never publicly revealed. As March explains, “The Jews had all been evacuated to the east during the war. Everyone knew that. What happened to them since was not a question anyone asked in public—or in private either, if they had any sense” (34). People in the novel’s world may have known that the Jewish people were executed, but it was never publicly discussed or acknowledged. Thus, when the attendees of the Wannsee Conference (Buhler, Luther, and Stuckart) threaten to go public with the information, Heydrich and Globus stop at nothing to prevent concrete confirmation of the Final Solution from being revealed to the German people, Germany’s allies, and the US, with whom Germany is trying to make peace throughout the novel.

Many of the characters that March encounters are real historical figures, whose lives Harris reimagines after the end of World War II. For example, one of the major perpetrators of the Holocaust who features in the novel is Reinhard Heydrich. In 1936, Heydrich became head of the security police, giving him power over the Kripo and the Gestapo. He was known for his brutality and “used his powers ruthlessly to imprison, torture, and execute anyone he considered a threat to the state or his own position in the Nazi Party” (Cartwright, Mark. “Reinhard Heydrich: The Infamous Head of Hitler’s Reich Security.” World History Encyclopedia, 2024). At the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich delivered the information about the Final Solution, claiming that Hitler had given him the authority to ensure its execution. The conference led to the establishment of death camps (a transition from concentration camps), which were named Operation Reinhard after Heydrich himself. Although Czechoslovakian rebels killed Heydrich in 1942, Harris reimagines his survival, rooting his ruthlessness and drive to protect the SS in Heydrich’s real-world actions. Just as in real life, Heydrich controlled the SS—and thus much of Germany itself—through his ruthless directives to others like Globus, Krebs, and Jaeger.