New order (Fatherland - Robert Harris)

Member Name: Belgian999

Product:	Fatherland - Robert Harris
Date:	05/12/02 (966 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent plot, credible characters, great mix of fact and fiction

Disadvantages: None that I can think of...

First published in 1992, it is hard to believe that ‘Fatherland’ was Richard Harris’s first attempt at fictional writing. He had made a name for himself with historical texts and political biographies, but this curiously compelling mix of whodunit and what might have been deservedly shot to the top of the best-seller lists. I found it particularly interesting as the story is set in the heart of Nazi Germany, a subject that I have long taken an interest in, thanks to studying the Nazi period and now living in Germany.

However, this book is set not in the pre-war years, but in 1964 - that’s the ‘what might have been’ part. ‘Fatherland’ is played out amidst the monumental architecture of Hitler’s triumphal Berlin, the capital of the Third Reich and heart of an empire stretching from the Rhine to the Urals. Europe is subjugated, Britain has been cowed and the USA has signed a peace treaty. Moscow is but a provincial outpost and the Ukrainian port city of Odessa has been renamed Theodorichshafen. Berlin itself has been completely remodelled, as envisaged in Albert Speer’s 1930s blueprints, and the German capital is busy with preparations for Adolf Hitler’s 75th birthday party.

Meanwhile Xavier March, an investigator with the Kripo (the criminal police force) is called to investigate the discovery of an old man’s body found floating in a lake on the outskirts of Berlin. March is regarded as politically unsound in a nation that regards conformity as a given (something that could be said to hold true even today) and despite being an extremely capable detective, his life is a mess. March lives in the shadow of some unnamed fear - his marriage has collapsed and his son has been indoctrinated into the Nazi way of life and thinks that his father is a traitor.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the seemingly simple case turns out to be far more dangerous than it seemed at first
sight, a story of intrigue, murder and deception leading right to the highest echelons of the ruling Nazi party. Naturally the powers that be, led by the sinister and violent figure of Odilo Globocnik (Globus) want to see that March does not reveal any dark secrets – but the detective gradually uncovers a bloody trail leading to secret bank accounts in Zurich and the extermination camp at Auschwitz.

What makes the book so convincing is the way that Harris has combined fact and fiction, weaving truth and supposition to make everything, every name and place appear very real indeed. We all know that the countries and cities he describes do not exist, have never existed – Berlin today is rebuilt, that much is true, but only after decades of Cold War and division, not after the triumph of Hitler’s armies in the east. If you visit the city of Nuremberg, you can still see the crumbling, weed-strewn remains of Speer’s imperial architecture, his dreams turned to rubble. However, this is no way lessens the impact of what Harris achieves – he makes you believe what you are reading. It could so easily have been this way. Tricks such as referring to US President Kennedy lull you into a false sense of security, until you are rudely jolted awake by the revelation that the Kennedy in question is old man Joseph, now infamous as a sympathiser for the Nazi regime.

Real figures from the Germany of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Globus, Reinhard Heydrich and Artur Nebe, are mixed with fictional characters like March, his partner Max Jaeger and Charlotte Maguire, an American journalist living in Berlin, who plays a pivotal role in the development of the story. Harris also refers to actual documents from the Nazi period, relating to the Wannsee conference and the plans for a ‘final solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem’. Of course, it helps if you’ve been to Katowice and Auschwitz, as both towns are mentioned as March
’s investigation draws to a close, but it all helps to reinforce the credibility of what is, after all, a fictional tale.

All of this factual basis means that when Harris does invent an event or a place, it is much easier to accept it as being plausible. All in all, this is an extremely well written book – the fictional characters are handled sensitively and their dialogue and interaction manages to come across as not being stilted or contrived. The real figures, mainly Gestapo figures who will be familiar to anyone with knowledge of the Nazi period, are made appropriately repulsive, and Harris does not shy away from dealing with grave issues such as deportation and extermination. In many ways, ‘Fatherland’ could almost be used as an easy primer for some basic information about Nazi Germany, as it is so convincing in places that you can be forgiven for missing the distinctions between reality and fiction. However, most importantly, the plot is strong and moves along at a decent pace, there are plenty of twists and surprises, and the ending was not what I was expecting at all – an excellent read!

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