I try my best to keep the style of writing on this site as apolitical as possible in the hopes of assuring people that I have absolutely nothing of substance to say. With this text, however, I might heat up the controversiality up to room temperature or even, perish the thought, lukewarm. I’m just going ahead and say it: National Socialism is bad. I know that sentence made you wary of cutting yourself on my edge, but in all seriousness, there are still a bunch of people on this Earth who haven’t completely internalized the idea.

I remember the moment not too long ago when I heard an elevator pitch to a book I thought was oozing with potential. Get this: It’s the alternate 1960s where the Nazis won the Second World War. The Nazis have blitzkrieg’d over their enemies, built their monuments and reshaped all the hedges in Europe into Swastikas. The story would revolve around the crumbling fascist government hierarchy and the main character who was part of said authoritarian machine, getting involved in a murder conspiracy revealing the true face of the Nazi ideology. Tons of potential there, right?

My first thought was that the setting is absolutely ingenious; it is easy in the reality to point at all the inhumane ideas of the Nazi regime and call out their flaws, because the Nazis lost and the sanctity of all human life prevailed in 1945. As much as some people still detest, equality between races is the norm that societies should aspire to. It is easy to judge all the crimes the Nazis did back in the day and explain why they were bad because they are the complete opposite of our current societal morals. But what if there was a world where the Nazi morals were the norm, a world where every person are taught their ideas from the crib to the grave, and there was nobody to say different? Would such a system even function?

I was really excited to open the first page of Robert Harris’ Fatherland. After a few chapters, however, I noticed that my expectations had severely diminished, and that there seemed to be no immediate stop to that trend. When I picked up the book I knew Harris by reputation, and wasn’t expecting anything Shakespearean. I think I was easing into a comfortable Michael Crichton-esque airport novel mood, but even then my expectations were met like how famous ocean liners meet icebergs.

First of all, the main character, who was so boring I don’t even remember their name, is your typical alcoholic divorcee detective, a trope so old even by 1992 that it origins would have to be carbon-dated. The first strike in my long list of grievances is that the protagonist starts off with not believing in the system and knowing that National Socialism doesn’t work, but goes along with it for the sake of his paycheck. How clever of a deconstruction of the Nazi regime would it have been, if the protagonist was fully on board with the Nazi atrocities, but in the course of book learned that these ideas are false and can’t be sustained, in the spirit of Jojo Rabbit? The aware protagonist loses the greatest edge the book could’ve had for some great philosophical points why the Nazis were in the wrong.

Second, the antagonist of the book is not the system itself but, bear with me, a corrupt counter-intelligence officer who was described in the book as a person not unlike your B-grade James Bond villain. The book makes a point the system enables corrupt behavior but it also pins the conspiracy on this one guy. Opening up the book I was hoping the antagonist would be this faceless Nazi system with no real representatives, just systematic oppression and hate, because that what the National Socialist ideas are based on. Very few people nowadays are afraid of a distinct person when they are afraid of National Socialism; they are afraid of the phenomenon itself. The book misses another great chance at dissecting the Führer’s regime by disregarding the core beliefs of the Nazis on the ground level.

I guess I should judge the book by what it is rather than what I wanted it to be, but I am so disappointed at it for having such a great idea for laying down the basics on why National Socialism just doesn’t work and why their ideas aren’t sustainable. A world where the Nazis have all the advantages they can, they have conquered the world, gassed all the dissidents and printed out all their propaganda books, but because the system is based on false ideas like the superiority of a certain ethnic group or successful rule through fear, the Nazis haven’t actually won and never will, and basic human decency and freedom of the individual will always prevail.