Steven Zoraster

It is 1964. Greater Germany has won the war that Poland, France and Britain started in 1939. It has made peace in 1945 with The United States, ending the war between those two countries that started in December 1941. In Eastern Europe, Germany has more or less conquered everything up to the Urals, but fighting continues against the remains of the Soviet Union east of the Urals. Sporadic resistance occurs in the occupied territories in the East, and even amongst workers brought in from the East to do the hard, dirty jobs no German wants to do. In Western Europe, Germany has, rather surprisingly, settled on nominal independence for France, Norway, Britain, Belgium, etc., and formed them into something like the modern European Economic Union, under strong German leadership.

Meanwhile, The United States defeated Japan after using atomic bombs, but, apparently, was afraid to use them against Germany for fear that Germany was able to attack North America with missiles. A cold war has existed between Greater Germany and The United States for almost 2 decades. What happened to the European Jews? They certainly aren't in Western Europe, Poland, Hungry or Germany anymore. If asked, any German with a sense of self-preservation professes to believe that they have been relocated out of Europe proper, to some ill-defined area in Eastern Europe. Those who wish to lead long, happy lives know that it is best to not to ask.

What made the European World War II results so different in Fatherland? The German navy discovered that their Enigma cipher system was compromised. After switching to a new system, the Germans won the submarine war against the supply lines from North America to Britain. This explanation is, at least, plausible.

So, what has happened afterwards? Besides the cold war across the Atlantic, the constant fighting in the East against Soviet forces armed by The United States, the terrorist attacks within Germany itself by "guest worker," and a surprising reluctance of young Germans to fight Soviet bandits in the East, the "revolutionary" part of the German Nazi party agenda has been largely forgotten. In fact, Germany would now like to build "détente" with The United States. The United States President is Joseph P. Kennedy, father of John Kennedy in our time-line, and, based on his record as ambassador to Great Britain in the late 1930s and early 1940s, a politician who might be eager to "normalize" relationships between his country and Germany. For the Germans, détente would legitimize their domination of Europe. Maybe, with an agreement in place, The United States will stop supporting the Russians, and everyone in Germany can live the good life they deserve. And, maybe, Germans can just forget about any past war crimes. This last hope is of special interest to those Germans guilty of the greatest crimes.

The protagonist of Fatherland, Xavier March, an homicide detective with Berlin Kriminalpolizei - the Kripo, the lowest ranking branch of the SS - is drawn into this geopolitical agenda while investigating the murder of one Josef Buhler. Buhler, it turns out, is an "old comrade," a man who joined the Nazi party in the early 1920s, when Hitler was a small time agitator, instead of the leader of a powerful political party. There are people in certain branches of the German government security services who want this investigation to end quickly. A determination that the dead man committed suicide would be welcome, and probably rewarded. But March, a 41-year-old, veteran of the submarine war, has other ideas. An unsatisfied and isolated man, divorced from his wife and alienated from his son, his job is the most important thing in his life. Since he is obviously dealing with a murder, he wants to solve it. He soon determines that this murder is tied in with other suspicious deaths among a small group of older Germans, who, while not all "old comrades," were all bureaucrats in the German government during World War II, or officials in the occupation government in defeated Poland.

With the "help" of a young and beautiful American journalist, "Charlie" Maguire, March searches for links between Buhler's death and the other deaths and for links with the any members of the group still alive. "Charlie" comes into the story line naturally. While looking up old friends of her mother, who was born and raised in Germany, she found the body of one of the Germans with connections to Buhler. While their search takes place, March is alternately threatened and encouraged by different, and apparently competing, branches of the German security services. After following a couple of false leads, March and Maguire find the real link, and, more important, documents which, if published in The United States, would destroy any possibility for détente between that country and Germany. Documents which Maguire and even March realize should be published. But getting that evidence out of Germany may not be their biggest problem, as the German security services close in on them.

The author of Fatherland has a wonderful sense of what-might-have-been in this alternate history, in which Germany has won World War II, at least in Europe. Berlin has been rebuilt in the grandiose architectural style favored by Hitler, and actually designed by Albert Speer in our timeline. Small neighborhood markets in Berlin, with long work hours and little immediate profit, are usually run by citizens of relatively poor countries that were allied with Germany during the war, such as Rumania. Those in Germany, who can afford them, favor British house servants. Charles Lindbergh, the great aviator and, before Pearl Harbor, an opponent of American intervention in World War II, is the American ambassador to Germany. One reason March is so alone is that he is a member of the SS. He does not socialize much at work, and outside of work, people just don't relax around a member of the SS, even a low ranking one like March. The only way March can find out the truth about the ongoing German-Russian war is by asking "Charlie." Switzerland is still neutral, now acting as an intermediary between Germans and Americans. And Swiss banks are still a repository for gold, money, stolen works of art, or secret documents for those who can both pay for the service and can get into Switzerland to place whatever they have in safekeeping. The light hegemony Germany has established over Western Europe is not believable, but it is incidental to the main story line, and forgivable from an British author, who apparently shares some of the concern the British still have about the European Economic Union in our own timeline. (If the author can't have some fun writing a book, how can we expect to have fun reading it?)

The personal development of Xavier March through the novel, from an "asocial," the 1960s German term for someone who obviously isn't dedicated to Nazi beliefs, but otherwise is hardly worth paying attention to, into an enemy of the state who lots of bad-tempered people would like to get their hand on, is well done. The few Germans, who, out of past friendship, are willing to help him - up to a point - are also well done. Those Germans we meet from the security services are both infinitely nasty and completely believable. The developing love story between the very American "Charlie," a 25-year-old reporter looking for her first big story, and the German March, a member of the SS, but also a man looking for the truth, is also believable. Finally, the tension which surrounds them as they search for whatever the truth is, while simultaneously trying to outsmart the German authorities, is both believable, and gripping.

The overriding and ominous tension in the book is probably the most interesting and rewarding characteristic of Fatherland. A lot of the chapters simply follows March as he goes about his investigation, looking through old files, searching peoples houses, visiting crime scenes, or attending meetings or interrogations. These ought to be boring, but aren't. Why? Because this is a Nazi Germany, where the authorities can and will kill you if they think it is necessary. The tone of the book makes this clear. So, all that searching through files, or just plain asking questions, is done with the understanding of both the protagonists in the novel and the readers, that asking for the wrong files, or asking the wrong questions, even if done innocently, can lead to horrible punishment.

But how does the author set the tone of the book so strongly? Simply by letting the readers know that in the world of Fatherland, neither heroes nor bad guys are beyond making mistakes. There is no George Smiley here, who can control events by initiating small actions that force others to follow inevitable courses towards victory or doom. In this world, ordinary people know that the authorities are not that much smarter than everyone else is, at least not all the time, because they don't have to bother! If pushed enough, the authorities simply use violence to solve problems, even small problems. Even imaginary problems. This certainly creates enough tension for everyone, including the reader.

This novel doesn't end by promising to penalize the Nazis for the evil they have committed. What it does do, is suggest that good people can come from anywhere and out of any system, and that there is hope that, against all odds, good may triumph in the end.