The Man in the High Castle

Or as I sometimes like to call it, “High in the Man Castle”.   Season 4, its final season, ended recently on Amazon Prime, and I wondered if I’d actually reviewed it in my blogs.  Answer: yes – the Phillip K. Dick novel, written in 1962, which I addressed briefly in blogs on Dick himself (11/12/2010) and alternate history novels in which Germany won WWII (5/27/2010).  The Amazon series debuted in January 2015, well after these blogs were written.  Moreover, even when it did premiere, it was by no means obvious that there would be more than one season.  It was expensive, with high production values, Amazon’s first shot at producing its own material, so there was no guarantee they’d continue it.   In fact, season 1 itself corresponds to the novel, meaning that to produce subsequent seasons, they would have to write new material.   Fortunately for us, they did, and I’ll comment on that below.

Making History.  Here is another one, written by actor Stephen Fry, which I hadn’t reviewed earlier – probably because I hadn’t read it.  

An obvious question anyone would have is:  HOW did the Nazis win WWII in “Man in the High Castle”?   The narrative shows that somehow the Nazis managed to develop nuclear weapons and destroy Washington, DC.   So why didn’t they do that in real life?

Well, because the top nuclear physicists at the time were Jewish, and the Nazis had a problem (!) with Jews.   The Final Solution – the deliberate policy of murdering Europe’s Jews in extermination camps in Poland – only started in 1942, well after the war was underway.  Before that, and in the years leading up to September 1, 1939 when the Nazis invaded Poland, Jews were free to leave Germany, ostensibly with the Nazis’ blessing.  In particular, the US was happy to welcome any particularly smart Jews like Einstein.  Bottom line was that we had all the scientists who knew how to develop nukes, and the Nazis didn’t.

In this story, Hitler’s hometown well was dosed with birth control pills and he was never born, so another German, a particularly shrewd officer, developed the Nazi Party and became the Fuhrer.  This man, Rudolf Gloder, was smart enough to keep his anti-Semitism a secret, so Germany’s Jews helped the Nazis win WWII.   Then, having successfully defeated everyone, Gloder proceeded to wipe out the Jews in Yugoslavia with no interference from the Allies or Russians.

None of that happened in “Man in the High Castle”, so Dick never quite managed to explain how the Nazis succeeded at developing nuclear weapons.

As noted, season 1 corresponds to the Dick novel.   Seasons 2, 3, and 4 plunge forward into uncharted territory, and the show ends with Episode 10 of season 4.  I don’t have the patience or the inclination to exhaustively map out all four seasons.   I actually watched E10 of S1, 2, and 3 to refresh what happened in those seasons, as season 4 is still fresh in my mind.

Situation.    The US is divided into three sections.   The East Coast, as far west as the Midwest, is under Nazi control.  Washington, DC is a nuclear wasteland, and the country’s capital is in New York City.  The Japanese control the West Coast, with San Francisco being its capital.   The area of the Rockies is a neutral territory evidently under no one’s control, home to a modest population of hipsters.

Major Characters.

Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith (Rufus Sewell).   A former US Army officer who fought in the Pacific, Smith is the head of Nazi Germany’s American sector.  In Season 4 we see how, upon the Nazis’ victory, former US officers were offered the chance to join the Nazis – the alternative being imprisonment or death.   For much of the series he’s actually somewhat enthusiastic, but as the series wears on he’s less so, as is his wife, Helen.   He actually manages to switch over into the “US won” dimension and see his alternate wife and son – and the latter volunteers for service in Vietnam.   To make matters even stranger, his alternate family lives in “Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia” – literally exactly where I live.  Of course, in that dimension, Washington DC is alive and well, as are its suburbs like Northern Virginia.

As a former US officer, Smith’s loyalty frequently comes into question by Germans, particularly Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler, though Adolf Hitler himself – aging with grey hair – still trusts him. 

By the way;  Mengele shows up as a scientist at the Nazis’ dimension portal.  J. Edgar Hoover is here to make sure Americans remain loyal to the Reich.   

Inspector Kido (Joel de la Fuente).   The ruthless inspector from the Kempetai, Japan’s version of Nazi Germany’s Gestapo.   Based in San Francisco, he travels around considerably, and even meets Smith – ostensibly they were enemies in the war though they didn’t actually meet face to face in combat.  The show gives him a remarkable degree of sympathy for a character who would otherwise be a villain.

Trade Minister Nagomi (Cary-Hiruyoki Tagawa).  The true hero on the Japanese side.  He also discovers the alternate dimension – the finale of S1 finds him in a San Francisco with ads by Ronald Reagan and news reports of President Kennedy.   In the alternate dimension his personal life turns out considerably different. 

Robert Childan (Brennan Brown).   An antiques dealer in San Francisco, he speaks fluent Japanese, and is somewhat of a collaborator.  Somehow he manages to keep himself in one piece, through means he himself might admit are questionable. 

Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos).   Competing with Smith as the lead character in the series.  She starts out in San Francisco but travels all around – and is one of the few characters capable of switching dimensions without the Nazis’ complex machine in a former mine shaft in Lackawanna, Pennsylvania. 

Hawthorne Abendsen (Stephen Root).  The Man in the High Castle himself.   He has these films of Allied victory which Crain and others recognize are not forgeries, but actual footage of the alternative dimensions.  By season 4 he’s captured by the Nazis and forced to shill for them – though even then he hides messages in his propaganda.   It turns out that his wife, Caroline, only hooks up with him in this timeline, in all the others they never meet.  He has an intriguing conversation with Smith in S3/E10.

Frank Frink (Rupert Evans).   A major character in S1 (and the book) who becomes less significant as the series wears on, he’s nominally Juliana’s boyfriend.    He’s a craftsman who creates “relics” for Childan to sell to Japanese customers looking for obscure and arcane Americana, but he’s also involved in the resistance against the Japanese, which puts him at odds with Kido. 

Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank).   Vying with Frank for Juliana’s affections, we learn where Joe came from originally.   He varies from being a strong character in his own right to being a mere pawn. 

The Resistance.   Naturally not everyone drinks the Nazi Kool-Aid.   There’s a considerable resistance in Japanese territory and in the Greater Reich, supposedly using the neutral territory as an effective sanctuary. 

By Season 4 we see a Black Communist Rebellion using AK47s, supplied by the Chinese and Soviets.  Which is odd, though, as China is controlled by Japan and Soviet Russia was defeated by the Nazis.   To explain this, some Japanese characters refer to rebellions in China and elsewhere in the Japanese empire which induce the Japanese to scale back.  Likewise, presumably the Germans lack the resources or manpower to control all of Russia, so the vast expanses of territory between the Urals and Manchuria provide ample hiding places for a combined Russian-Chinese communist rebellion.  In real life, Stalin moved much of the USSR’s factories east of the Urals, and the Nazis never intended to control Russia in its entirety even if they managed to take Moscow and defeat Stalin.  And militarily, while nuclear weapons are highly effective against sovereign nations with major metropolitan areas, they would be useless against a guerilla army which melts into the countryside across the country.  So this element of the narrative isn’t entirely implausible.

Alternate Timelines.  Dick never quite explained that part of it, at least not to my satisfaction.  For their part, the Nazis discover this, but it remains a closely held secret among the characters.  Once the Nazis do discover it, they develop a portal, with the ultimate goal of stealing as much technology they can from other timelines and then using that to invade and conquer those in which they didn't win WWII.  Not an optimal outcome, and the Resistance, by the end of Season 4, sets upon the task of destroying the portal.  Stay tuned.  

As you might imagine, the most notable achievements of the series was continuing the narrative past season 1, past the original story.   That took considerable imagination and a truly inspired writing staff.  I’m aware that not everyone is impressed with how it ended, but given how far they took it from Dick’s source material, they did well to give us three seasons more, so I’m inclined to cut them slack on that.  It had to end sometime, and it was going to be an ending which Dick didn’t provide them.   

Nazi America.   The other major achievement was portraying the US under Nazi control.   A US flag with a white swastika in the upper left quadrant where the 50 states’ stars would be.   Armbands with red and white stripes.   Propaganda cleverly mixing US culture with Nazi ideology.   Even “Reichgiving”, combining our Thanksgiving holiday with Nazi ideology.   Amazing.   [Credit Hugo Boss with the uniforms, by the way.]

Nazis in 1962.   Finally, they also extend things into the 60s.   The German combat uniforms have a splinter pattern closer to the East German army (NVA), although the helmets remain the 1935 pattern.  German soldiers carry H&K assault rifles similar to the Bundeswehr.   Ceremonial guards in Berlin still have the famous black SS uniforms.  SS insignia is not merely ubiquitous but also authentic: they got all the various rank patches right, from privates, NCOs, junior officers, up to Himmler himself.  Berlin is the metropolis Hitler always wanted.  Joe Blake visits Berlin and is invited to a party of hipster artists who introduce him to LSD - imagine hits of acid with swastikas on them.  

The Nazis are an evil, totalitarian dictatorship and ideology at its most seductive and irresistible.  The Swastika is simple yet dramatic, and can be incorporated in all sorts of ways, as the show illustrates, even into traditional American imagery.   The Man in the High Castle gives us the ultimate depiction of Nazi America.