NEUROPA: THE NEW ORDER

The year is 1964, the place is Berlin, the mastodontic Metropolis of the National Socialist empire. The celebration of Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday is approaching, as well as an apeacement summit conference with the American president, Joseph Kennedy. In the east, in the distant Ural, the war against the Soviet guerilla has raged for over 20 years.
Xavier March is an experienced murder investigator in Kripo, Kriminalpolizei, the criminal investigation division of SS. Although a decorated war veteran and a skilled homicide investigator, he has a rather unstable position. He is not exactly a dissident, but throughout the years, March's dossier has grown thicker and thicker. He has been declared "asocial", i.e. he ignores to participate in the social activities of the Nazi associations.

A cold, misty morning in April, March is called to the shores of Lake Havel in central Berlin. A body has been washed ashore: a pale, fat, old man in swimming-trunks. March is puzzled by the mysterious corpse: Who is he? What is the cause of death: a homicide, a suicide, an accident?
It turns out the victim was an important man during the war — Nazi top brass. March does not get far in his inquiries, though: Gestapo, the secret state police, takes charge of the investigation and Kripo is cut off. Every wise man in Germany would back off, but March is not a wise man: he is a stubborn man. He continues the investigation on his own and finds a most unexpected ally in the American correspondent Charlotte Maguire. Charlie, as she calls herself, is a cocky and independant women; quite a shock for March, accustomed to the submissive women of the Nazi system.
The situation soon gets serious: it turns out that several high-ranking officials might be involved. Reinhard Heydrich — Himmler's successor as Reichführer-SS and potentially also Hitler's successor as Führer in the future — interferes, although not in person. He is represented by Odilo Globocnik, "Globus", a dreaded SS henchman, infamous for his brutality; to make things worse, Globus hates March passionately. March becomes the tool of Arthur Nebe, the chief of Kripo; an expendable pawn in a power game between Kripo and Gestapo. What initially seemed to be just another murder investigation turns out to be the prelude of a nightmare symphony...

Robert Harris is a skilled British journalist and author. He has made his homework well: the novel has an impressive accuracy when it comes to detail. Overall, Fatherland is a very good approximation of what Neuropa, the "New Europe", could have looked like. There is a profound sense of realism throughout the whole book; all high-ranking officials and Nazi henchmen in the novel existed in reality, for instance. The critical year when our history started to change is 1942; that is way e.g. Reinhard Heydrich is still alive.
There are of course many well-educated guesses in the novel, since Hitler had very vague ideas about the future:

  • As depicted in the novel, Berlin would be turned into a monstrous Nazi Metropolis, bristling with inspid war monuments. Even during his very last days, Hitler studied outlines and models of the future Berlin, Germania. This is one of the few things we know for sure.

  • The Netherlands, Flemish Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Norway would have been incorporated in the Third Reich, with or without their approval; these ethnicities were considered to be of "Nordic race". Both Hitler and Himmler were determined to realise this project; Harris is more vague about the issue in the novel. France would have become a satellite state; Italy, Spain and Great Britain would probably have become more or less independant vasall states.

  • Poland, European Russia and perhaps also Germany's East European allies would have been colonised by "Aryan" settlers. All major Russian cities would be destroyed and the entire Russian and Polish populations would be turned into illiterate slaves. In fact, the Nazis almost completed the colonisation of Poland, the Generalguvernement, when the war still was raging in the east. The "colonies" would probably have resembled the British and French colonies in Africa and Asia during the 19th century; a feudalesque, crypto-Medieval society. Hitler was quite frank: "Here, in the east, is our experimental field." Harris rather depicts an industrial project with exploited guest workers.

  • Harris makes a big deal of the Nazi European Union in the novel. In reality, there were only some loose plans about a monetary union. The Reichsmark would, of course, have dominated the union completely, had it been realised. (This fact has been abused by less educated politicians in EU debates. The Pan-European idea is in fact much older than that.)

  • As predicted in the novel, SS would have become extremely powerful. Already by 1942-43, SS had become a self-sufficient, supranational network; SS has often been described as a state within the state. Whether the SS actually would have become the true rulers of the Nazi empire is uncertain, but they would definitely have been in charge of the "colonies".

The cruel and baroque nature of this gigantic colonisation project suggests a complete lack of inhibitions among the Nazi coryphaei. Exactly how far they would have gone in the realisation of their distorted fantasies is difficult to say. Who knows? The horror scenario in Philip K Dick's The Man in the High Castle may possibly be as plausible as the moderate scenario in Fatherland.

Fatherland is much more than a well written uchronian depiction (i.e. alternative history scenario): it is also an excellent exposé of the psychology of the Third Reich. Harris has probed the Nazi abyss, really explored the distorted psychological mechanisms of this nightmare empire. Personally, I think Fatherland is a brilliant dystopian novel and of the same dignity as Nineteen Eighty-four in some respects. Whether you find the concept fascinating or not, Fatherland is an excellent thriller, full of suspense and intrigue. Fatherland became a bestseller, and for good reasons.



Perhaps you have seen the movie adaption with Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardsson? If that is the case, don't judge the book by its movie. Hauer and Richardson portrays March and Charlie with bravura, but the script doesn't really do the novel justice. The movie has its moments, but all in all it's a quite mediocre craft.


Picture: Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson in Fatherland, 1994.

The whole concept has been simplified, and the psychological depths of the novel are basically lost. A brilliant novel has been turned into a conventional thriller in an unconventional

environment; the likewise mediocre adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale comes to mind. Especially the sentimental — and hypocritical! — Hollywood ending is annoying. As always, I would recommend to read the novel first and then see the movie.

THE DYSTOPIAN DEPTH

The Third Reich could be described as a real-life dystopia. It has inspired many a writer and filmmaker, probably most notably George Orwell when he wrote Nineteen Eighty-four. Ironically, Ingsoc resembled both NSDAP and SKUP (the Soviet communist party), and Thinkpol both Gestapo and NKVD (later to become KGB). Whichever shape a totalitarian society takes, the result is always the same: power concentration through oppression. Even more ironically, the structural core principle is the same in capitalist, fascist and communist societies, although political radicals usually claim to oppose capitalism. In the end, it is all about raw power and material comfort.
It goes without saying that Fatherland becomes a freightening voyage into the darkest corners of human history. The Third Reich was basically founded on Social-Darwinist principles: survival of the fittest. Problems were always solved with threats and brute force. The Nazis never tried to convert, persuade or even manipulate opponents: they simply executed them them or imprisoned them in concentration camps. The Third Reich was a never ending spiral of violence and death.
The German youth was encouraged to be violent, cruel and fanatic — Hitler even admitted it openly in speeches. The German people were systematically trimmed to become merciless soldiers and brutal colonialists, just like the British and French in the late 19th century. Some experts have suggested that Hitler's quest for Lebensraum was a German copy of the French and British colonisation of Africa and Asia; I am bound to agree. The Nazi raciology was only a means: the end goal was German supremacy and a crypto-Medieval world order. Hitler even admitted himself that the validity of the race concept was weak or non-exist.

Contrary to popular belief, the Third Reich was anything but an effective society. A society based on such primitive principles does not extract an elite, but the exact opposite. With the exception of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, the leaders of the Nazi empire were intellectually poor men. Most of the Nazi leaders were men who had failed in life; quite a few of them were also old sluggards, drunkards, pederasts, hustlers and criminals. Some of them were basically silly idiots in many respects, e.g. Himmler, Ribbentrop, Streicher and Ley, although unfortunately in very influential positions.
Some experts have described the Third Reich as an "organised anarchy", which indeed is a fitting description. The rights and authorities of offices and institutions were seldom clearly specified or demarcated: the greyzones were vast.

Furthermore, there were often at least two offices or institutions working within the same field. For instance, there was a multitude of secret police organisations in the Third Reich: the three big players Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), Sipo (Sicherheitspolizei) and SD (Sicherheitsdienst), as well as several small players.

This was a most deliberate strategy, originating from the mad Führer himself: divide and rule. Consequently, there were constant power struggles, even during the final stages of the war. Although very rare, there were examples of how intelligence organisations betrayed agents from competing organisations to the enemy!
The consequence of this ever-present and brutal competition was that the Nazi leaders were surrounded by fawners and yes-men, bristling with vanity and ambition, prepared to defame and betray. The power struggles in the novel are by no means exaggerations; they were often triggered by simple envy and desire for vengeance. The losers in such vendettas often ended their days in front units in Russia, suicide commandos in Yugoslavia or concentration camps in Poland.

Furthermore, there existed no such thing as a Nazi ideology. Before the take-over, the NSDAP party programme was partially ignored, partially opportunistically interpreted; after the take-over it was abandonded. Nazi ideology basically equalled Hitler's whims. Generally speaking, Nazi officials had very few guidelines. They feared to go against Hitler's will, but they seldom knew what it was. Thus, they had to guess, and the confusion was sometimes monumental.

Something which is emphasised in the novel, and for good reasons, is the power of the SS, Schutzstaffeln. The Third Reich is, debatedly, the only true police state that has ever existed: in many respects, the SS were the real rulers of the Third Reich. Every single police organisation was integrated in Allgemeine-SS; Waffen-SS enlisted more than one million soliders, among them many foreigners only loyal to SS; in order to be independant of the state, SS owned more than 500 companies — SS almost had monopoly on some products; SS even offered patronage through Fördente Mitglieder, basically a masonic lodge. In some respects, SS actually resembles all-powerful mega-corporations in e.g. Neuromancer...
The terror in Hitler's Third Reich was not as random and paranoid as in Stalin's Soviet Union, though. An obedient, "pedigree" boot-licker lacking initiative and ambition could live a quite comfortable life. In fact, the common man, "Schmidt", seems to have enjoyed life in the Third Reich. The "enemies of the state" were treated more mercilessly in the Third Reich than in the Soviet Union, though. Perhaps the annihilation camps would have been shut down after the war, but not the dreaded forced labour camps. In a way, these sadistic institutions represented the very nature of National Socialism: ruthlessness, brutality and horror.


A comfortable life or not, the subjects of this monstrous political experiment, the German citizens, had to endure the strange ideas and whims of the Führer. They could not escape. The Third Reich was a truly totalitarian society: the Nazis controlled all societal and social functions. All clubs, organisations, associations and communities — however trivial — were politicised. Hitler admitted openly in a speech, that once a boy or girl had joined a youth organisation "they would never be free again". For instance, it was compulsory for a boy to join Pimpf when he was 10-14 years old and Hitlerjugend when he was 14-18 years old, followed by labour service and military service. As an adult, he was expected to join one or more Nazi organisations of a political, military or professional nature. The strictly


Picture: Nazi propaganda poster, frankly stating that "all 10 year olds [must come] to us".
regulated lives of the Party members in Nineteen Eighty-four is actually not that far from reality.


The German citizen was expected to be obedient and accomodating. Creativity and imagination were only encouraged within certain fields, mainly military and industrial. Other individual initiatives were usually surpressed. The Nazi party, NSDAP, was organised like a military organistaion: obedience and exactitude were concidered more valuable than creativity and finess. Hitler didn't tolerate even the slightest fractions within the party. Art and culture were completely institutionalised: every book, play, movie, radio program, television program (yes, they had TV in the Third Reich), music tune, statue and painting were filtered through various propaganda institutions. Needless to say, the quality of the German culture was extremely poor during the Nazi reign.
It is also reasonable to say that the educational system of the Third Reich was among the poorest in Europe. The German youth lived in ignorance. They had been successfully indoctrinated and transformed into obedient tools of the regime. One can only speculate which horrors the Nazi future would have held. One day, youth would have equalled Hitlerjugend for everyone; everyone would have been raised in the spirit of Social-Darwinism. Civilisation as we know it would perhaps have come to an end.

THE PROBABILITY

Could Hitler have won the war? Most definitely.
Totalitarian societies have always been completely focused on war, or at least military efforts, and The Third Reich was no exception. The German army was better trained and better equipped than any Allied army. During both the French and Soviet campaigns, Germany was quantitatively inferior regarding infantry, artillery, tanks and airplanes and still successful, at least initially successful in the latter case. Having this in mind, there were ways the Third Reich could have won the war:

  • The Battle of Britain: The British participation was essential for the outcome of the war — without the British Islands, the invasion in Normandie would probably have been impossible. The Third Reich had to station as many as 40 divisions in France throughout the war, which could not be deployed in Russia. The British were determined to defend their islands at all costs — they even considered to use poison gas — and they had the best Allied army during the whole war, considering size and resources.

    Nevertheless, there were actually several ways the Third Recih could have neutralised or even defeated their opponent: A) A whimsical decision by Hitler prevented the capture of 300,000 of the best British soldiers in Dunkerque. B) RAF could have been defeated if Luftwaffe had continued to bomb airfields and radar installations instead of cities and industries. C) Even without air supremacy, an invasion could have been implemented: mine fields and submarines could have kept the British navy away. D) If the German navy had concetrated all their resources and efforts on submarines, the Battle of the Atlantic could have been won; Great Britain would have been starved to death. This was actually what worried Winston Churchill the most.
  • Operation Barbarossa: The attempts to conquer Moskow, including adjunctive industrial centras, and the oil fields of Baku were too slow and too shattered — much thanks to Hitler's interference in strategic decisions, actually. Had these offensives been successful, the capacity of the Red Army would have been fatally weakened. Note that Hitler only wanted to occupy European Russia. The fundamental principle of the military strategy was to A) injure the Soviet Union mortally in one swift stroke and then B) let it bleed to death in drawn-out guerilla wars. Hitler even seemed cheerful about the prospect of a never-ending war.

    Furthermore, the Third Reich failed to use their potential allies. Imperial Japan was never even asked to join, although they had the best infantry troops in the world. There were a few attempts to persuade Turkey to join, but they were only half-hearted — fortunately, since Turkey had a large army strategically positioned close to the oil fields in Baku. Finally, the Third Reich could actually have organised large Russian armies! At first, the German troops were looked upon as liberators, and propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels agitated for temporary co-operation; luckily, Hitler refused to listen.
  • Operation Ultra: The Allies gained an enormous advantage when they managed to crack the German code machine Enigma. The Allies were prepared to keep it secret at all costs. Although Churchill knew in advance Coventry would be terror-bombed, the city was never evacuated: it would have exposed Operation Ultra. It was indeed an important asset. Sometimes, the Allied intelligence knew Hitler's order before the German generals did. This became crucial especially during the Battle of the Atlantic and the Invasion of Normandie. The Germans kept the Enigma system throughout the whole war; had it been replaced, the outcome of the war could have been different.
  • Operation Overlord: There are many examples of failed amphibian operations throughout history; it goes without saying that it is easier to defend than attack shores. In fact, D-Day could very well have ended in tragedy. Had it not been for Hitler's whimsical strategy, the German forces in France could have thrown the invasion army back into the sea quite easily. Thanks to Operation Ultra mentioned above, the Allied supreme command knew Hitler's strategy.
  • Technology: The Third Reich had a lead in military technology, a fact Hitler fortunately failed to exploit. However fantastic it may sound, the German army could theoretically have implemented Operation Desert Storm already in the 1940s; the modern American army is actually half a century old. The Germans used fully functional radar-directed artillery, jet fighters, jet bombers, radar planes and remote missiles in combat and had fully operational prototypes of helicopters, aircraft carriers, stealthlike bombers and even "television bombs", i.e. missiles directed with camera! Furthermore, the German nuclear weapon project actually started before the American. Picture this nightmare scenario: Hitler with nuclear missiles!

All in all, we should be thankful the war ended the way it did. We tend to forget that we were on the verge of going back to the Middle Ages. Decades of Soviet and American terror followed, but the alternative would no doubt have been a hundred times worse.