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Fatherland (novel)

Fatherland AuthorRobert HarrisCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglishGenreThriller, alternate historyPublisherHutchinson7 May 1992Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)Pages372 (first edition, hardback)ISBN0-09-174827-5 (first edition, hardback)OCLC26548520
Fatherland is a 1992 alternative history detective novel by English writer and journalist Robert Harris. Set in a universe in which Nazi Germany won World War II, the story's protagonist is an officer of the Kripo, the criminal police, who is investigating the murder of a Nazi government official who participated at the Wannsee Conference. A plot is thus discovered to eliminate all of those who attended the conference to help improve German relations with the United States.

The novel subverts some of the conventions of the detective novel. It begins with a murder and diligent police detective investigating and eventually solving it. However, since the murderer is highly placed in a tyrannical regime, solving the mystery does not result in the detective pursuing and arresting the murderer. The contrary occurs in the novel: the murderer pursuing and arresting the detective.

The novel was an immediate best-seller in the UK and has sold over three million copies and been translated into 25 languages. Click here, to see the World Map.

Plot
The novel opens in Nazi Germany in April 1964 during the week leading up to the 75th birthday of Adolf Hitler Detective Xavier March is an investigator working for the Kriminalpolizei (Kripo), as he investigates the suspicious death of a high-ranking Nazi, Josef B�hler, in the Havel on the outskirts of Berlin. As March uncovers more details, he realises that he is caught up in a political scandal involving senior Nazi Party officials, who are apparently being systematically murdered under staged circumstances. As soon as the body is identified, the Gestapo claims jurisdiction and orders the Kripo to close its investigation.

In the story, March meets with Charlotte 'Charlie' Maguire, an American journalist. Both are determined to investigate the case and travel to Z�rich to investigate the private Swiss bank account of one of the murdered officials. Ultimately, they uncover the truth behind the staged murders: Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the SS, has ordered the Gestapo to eliminate the remaining officials who planned the Final Solution (of which few Germans are aware) at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942. The elimination is being hurried to safeguard an upcoming meeting of Hitler and US President John F. Kennedy, by ensuring that the fate of the missing Jews can never be revealed. Maguire heads for neutral Switzerland and hopes to expose the evidence of the extermination to the world. March, however, is denounced by his ten-year-old son and apprehended by the Gestapo.

In the cellars of Gestapo headquarters at Prinz-Albrecht-Stra�e, March is tortured but does not reveal Maguire's location. Odilo Globocnik boasts that Auschwitz and the other camps have been totally razed and that March will never know the truth for certain. Kripo Chief Arthur Nebe stages a rescue with the intention of tracking March as he meets with Maguire at their rendezvous in Waldshut-Tiengen, on the Swiss-German border. March realises what is happening, heads for Auschwitz and leads the authorities in the wrong direction.

The Gestapo catches up with March at the unmarked site of Auschwitz. Knowing that Maguire had enough time to cross the border into Switzerland, March searches for some sign that the camp existed. As Gestapo agents close in on him in a helicopter, March uncovers bricks in the undergrowth. Satisfied, he pulls out his gun and continues to walk towards the birch woods.

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