Post by lordroel on Jan 26, 2017 16:11:08 GMT
Fatherland (novel)
Fatherland is a 1994 TV film of the book of the same name by Robert Harris.
Alternate World War II history (according to the novel)
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. 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. 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. 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.
In the novel, King George VI, the British royal family and the Prime Minister Winston Churchill fled into exile in Canada. Edward VIII regained the British throne soon afterwards, with Wallis Simpson as his queen. The US defeated Japan in 1945 and used nuclear weapons, as in real life. 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. Thus, after a peace treaty in 1946, the US and Germany are the novel's two superpower opponents in the Cold War.[note 3][6] Another significant divergence is the political career of Joseph Kennedy, who in real life was 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 and is seeking re-election in 1964.
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.
Map: Germany and its sphere of influence are in red; the United States and its sphere of influence in blue; China and Switzerland in yellow
Plot (movie)
In the prologue, the failure of the D-Day invasion causes the United States to withdraw from the war in Europe and Dwight D. Eisenhower to retire in disgrace. The US continues the Pacific War against Japan and wins by using atomic bombs. In Europe, Germany invades the United Kingdom, resulting in King George VI and the rest of the Royal family fleeing to Canada in exile with Edward VIII regaining the throne while Wallis Simpson becomes queen. Winston Churchill also goes into exile in Canada and lives there until his death in 1953. German society is largely clean and orderly - at least on the surface - with the SS reorganized into a peacetime police force.
Germany, which has corralled all European countries into a single state called "Germania," is embroiled in an endless guerrilla war with the USSR, still led by the 85 year-old Joseph Stalin, which lasts well into the 1960s. The 1960 election of US President Joseph Kennedy gives the Nazi leadership a chance to secure a better understanding with the U.S. In 1964, as Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday on 20 April approaches and President Kennedy heads to Germania for a summit meeting, the nation opens its borders to U.S. media.
Map: Europe in 1964 according to Fatherland
A body is found floating in a lake near Berlin. SS Major Xavier March starts investigating the body and the witness who saw it being dumped. The dead person is revealed to be Josef Bühler, a retired Nazi Party official who managed the Jewish resettlement in the east during the war. However, the Gestapo takes over the case for "state security" reasons. The witness is killed in an "accident" that seems to have been arranged by the Gestapo.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Charlie Maguire, a member of a visiting US press entourage, runs into an old man who slips her an envelope. A note on a photograph in the envelope leads her to Wilhelm Stuckart, another retired Nazi Party official, but she finds him dead at his apartment. March is assigned to the Stuckart case, but when he takes Charlie to where she found the body, the Gestapo shows up, and March is again taken off the case. Following up on the photo, Charlie and March visit Wannsee to learn the names of those in the photo, all of whom attended the Wannsee Conference, and discover they’ve all been murdered except for Franz Luther, the man who gave her the picture.
March tells Charlie to get out of Germania, as he now realizes there is a plot at the very highest levels. Luther contacts Charlie and asks her to meet him in a train, where he requests that she communicate his desire for safe passage to the US so that he can reveal what he knows about "the biggest secret of the war." SS troops corner Luther and kill him, but March rescues Charlie. March later blackmails a colleague to get Luther’s file and learns that he had a mistress, former stage actress Anna von Hagen.
Posing as a US Embassy official sent to process Luther's safe passage, Charlie visits von Hagen and gets Luther's papers. Von Hagen reveals the secret that the papers prove Germany killed the Jews during the war. March, who is shocked at seeing the photos and documents, agrees to join Charlie in escaping Germania with his son, but the Gestapo has already persuaded his son to betray his father to them. When March goes to pick up his boy, Gestapo chief General Globus appears with his men. March kills one agent and flees, stopping at a nearby phone booth to call his son one more time before he dies from his wounds. As Kennedy arrives at the Great Hall, a member of the press entourage helps Charlie slip the documents to the president via the US ambassador. Kennedy looks at the materials and decides to fly back to the US immediately.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that the narrator is actually March's now-grown son. He says Charlie was eventually arrested by the Gestapo. The revelation of the mass slaughter of the Jews derailed any prospect of a strategic alliance with the US, resulting in the Nazi regime's collapse.
Fatherland Movie
Fatherland is a 1994 TV film of the book of the same name by Robert Harris.
Alternate World War II history (according to the novel)
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. 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. 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. 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.
In the novel, King George VI, the British royal family and the Prime Minister Winston Churchill fled into exile in Canada. Edward VIII regained the British throne soon afterwards, with Wallis Simpson as his queen. The US defeated Japan in 1945 and used nuclear weapons, as in real life. 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. Thus, after a peace treaty in 1946, the US and Germany are the novel's two superpower opponents in the Cold War.[note 3][6] Another significant divergence is the political career of Joseph Kennedy, who in real life was 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 and is seeking re-election in 1964.
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.
Map: Germany and its sphere of influence are in red; the United States and its sphere of influence in blue; China and Switzerland in yellow
Plot (movie)
In the prologue, the failure of the D-Day invasion causes the United States to withdraw from the war in Europe and Dwight D. Eisenhower to retire in disgrace. The US continues the Pacific War against Japan and wins by using atomic bombs. In Europe, Germany invades the United Kingdom, resulting in King George VI and the rest of the Royal family fleeing to Canada in exile with Edward VIII regaining the throne while Wallis Simpson becomes queen. Winston Churchill also goes into exile in Canada and lives there until his death in 1953. German society is largely clean and orderly - at least on the surface - with the SS reorganized into a peacetime police force.
Germany, which has corralled all European countries into a single state called "Germania," is embroiled in an endless guerrilla war with the USSR, still led by the 85 year-old Joseph Stalin, which lasts well into the 1960s. The 1960 election of US President Joseph Kennedy gives the Nazi leadership a chance to secure a better understanding with the U.S. In 1964, as Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday on 20 April approaches and President Kennedy heads to Germania for a summit meeting, the nation opens its borders to U.S. media.
Map: Europe in 1964 according to Fatherland
A body is found floating in a lake near Berlin. SS Major Xavier March starts investigating the body and the witness who saw it being dumped. The dead person is revealed to be Josef Bühler, a retired Nazi Party official who managed the Jewish resettlement in the east during the war. However, the Gestapo takes over the case for "state security" reasons. The witness is killed in an "accident" that seems to have been arranged by the Gestapo.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Charlie Maguire, a member of a visiting US press entourage, runs into an old man who slips her an envelope. A note on a photograph in the envelope leads her to Wilhelm Stuckart, another retired Nazi Party official, but she finds him dead at his apartment. March is assigned to the Stuckart case, but when he takes Charlie to where she found the body, the Gestapo shows up, and March is again taken off the case. Following up on the photo, Charlie and March visit Wannsee to learn the names of those in the photo, all of whom attended the Wannsee Conference, and discover they’ve all been murdered except for Franz Luther, the man who gave her the picture.
March tells Charlie to get out of Germania, as he now realizes there is a plot at the very highest levels. Luther contacts Charlie and asks her to meet him in a train, where he requests that she communicate his desire for safe passage to the US so that he can reveal what he knows about "the biggest secret of the war." SS troops corner Luther and kill him, but March rescues Charlie. March later blackmails a colleague to get Luther’s file and learns that he had a mistress, former stage actress Anna von Hagen.
Posing as a US Embassy official sent to process Luther's safe passage, Charlie visits von Hagen and gets Luther's papers. Von Hagen reveals the secret that the papers prove Germany killed the Jews during the war. March, who is shocked at seeing the photos and documents, agrees to join Charlie in escaping Germania with his son, but the Gestapo has already persuaded his son to betray his father to them. When March goes to pick up his boy, Gestapo chief General Globus appears with his men. March kills one agent and flees, stopping at a nearby phone booth to call his son one more time before he dies from his wounds. As Kennedy arrives at the Great Hall, a member of the press entourage helps Charlie slip the documents to the president via the US ambassador. Kennedy looks at the materials and decides to fly back to the US immediately.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that the narrator is actually March's now-grown son. He says Charlie was eventually arrested by the Gestapo. The revelation of the mass slaughter of the Jews derailed any prospect of a strategic alliance with the US, resulting in the Nazi regime's collapse.
Fatherland Movie
