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Jun 20, 2011

Stephen rated it:

I’ve never read a book that more starkly highlighted for me how thankful the good people of the world should be that the allies won World War II. While my final rating for this book is only 3 stars, there are parts of this story that I found extremely compelling.

BACKSTORY/ALTERNATIVE HISTORY

Welcome to a very dark future...

It is 1964 and all of Germany is preparing to celebrate Adolf Shitler’s 75th birthday. As part of this national event, the Pr More...

10 comments like (34 people liked it)

Mar 09, 2008

Jason rated it:

A murder in 1960s Nazi Germany draws one Berlin detective into a greater mystery than he could have ever imagined. Or could he?

The great thing about Fatherland is that Robert Harris doesn't try to do too much with the counterfactual history. It's definitely there, of course, but the reader discovers it naturally as (fictional) historical details come up in the flow of the novel. There is no heavy-handed explanation of how this alternate history diverged from the history we know, no More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2008

Hank rated it:

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2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 21, 2007

Grumpus rated it:

Again, as in the case of Simple Genius, this is the reason I don’t read more fiction. Even the historical fiction nature of the book, (Germany wins WWII, it’s a different world, yada, yada, yada—you can read more of the storyline in the reviews others have written) couldn’t save it for me.

I thought that both this book and Simple Genius had excellent premises but the stories failed to draw me in like a good Dean Koontz book.

Oh, and I am very literal. The book ends More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2010

Michael rated it:

One of the guilty pleasures I've just realised I enjoy is counter-factual history.

This is a quite remarkable book which led to a film adaptation (featuring The Hitcher himself Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson - Queenie in Blackadder II).

The premise is based on an alternative reality that the Nazis had not, in fact, been defeated in 1945 but been pacified by the Allies after subjugating most of Europe.

It's the mid 1960s and the holocaust has never come to light. The Nazi hierarchy are attem More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Mar 23, 2011

Seb rated it:

'Fatherland' is one of those novels that every writer dreams of – the book that changes everything. Robert Harris went from BBC reporter to world-recognised author in one jump. The well-appointed house where he now lives was 'bought with the proceeds of Fatherland.’ It began a series of successes that took in 'Enigma', a trilogy set in Ancient Rome and culminated in last year's 'The Ghost'. This success is based on a fiction sub genre, what you might call the fact-based thriller.

Howe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 17, 2011

Stephen rated it:

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Feb 05, 2011

Joel rated it:

I'm surprised at myself that I never read this before, or if I did, that I managed to forget it. It's a terrific counter-factual history (I love that description) of what might have happened had Germany won WWII. Harris very cleverly shows that the geo-political world would have still be recognizable. The European Community (created for the bloc of independent Europe as German client states), President Kennedy in the White House, but it was Kennedy-pere, the right wing Fascist and even Ambass More...

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Jan 26, 2011

Dick rated it:

This book would have us believe that, had the Nazi’s won WW2, the truth about the holocaust would have been unknown as late as 1964. The Wannsee Conference was dramatized on TV in the last couple of years (starring Kenneth Brannaugh). As I recall, there were a couple of the attendees who had serious reservations about the “final solution.” There were others who objected, and it just seems unlikely to me that the truth would never have surfaced. Charlie, the female American journalist, would More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 08, 2009

Emily rated it:

Inadvertently, I seem to have picked up a book that is the opposite of The Yiddish Policemen's Union. (There's also a shade of the mediocre Farthing here.) Whereas Chabon's book imagines a world in which Jewish refugees form a state in Alaska (which forms the backdrop for a mystery novel), this book imagines a 1964 in which Germany has triumphed over Russia, subjugated Europe, and is in a cold war with the United States (as a backdrop for a mystery novel). The alternative world has some interest More...

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Aug 25, 2009

Matimate rated it:

The best thing on alternative history books is that they are dealing with what if? What if Hitled did not die in 1945? What if Germany was under Nazi rule and under the care of almighty Fuhrer? The book begins with the feeling of country under the Nazi rule which is like totalitarian nightmare. Whole country is in the midst of preparation for Fuhrer 75 birthday, when the body is washed on the bank and all troubles started. Xavier March was very talented detective, but with own personal life fall More...

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Aug 07, 2009

Jason rated it:

I guess I am on a Robert Harris binge. This is an alternate history book, where the Germans beat the crap out of the Russians in WWII and the new cold war is between Germany and the US. It's presented as detective fiction, and written ok as that, but again the draw for me is the scenery that Harris draws around the main storyline. It's very interesting what-if stuff. One example is that, in passing, he talks about how the German army found all these mass graves and other evidence of Stalin's More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 18, 2009

Paul rated it:

This is a counterfactual novel, set in the Greater German Reich 20 years after Germany won World War II in 1946. President Kennedy (Joseph, John's father) is president of the U.S. and Hitler is still the Fuhrer (no umlaut available here). Charles Lindbergh is the U.S. ambassador to Germany. The book is a convincing thriller, and I found it compelling.

The presence of Lindbergh as ambassador was no surprise, really; he was the U.S. president in Philip Roth's "The Plot Against Ame More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 02, 2010

Arun rated it:

If there is one thing that i take away from this book then it is the atmosphere the author creates. Fatherland, simply put is a well crafted thriller in the lines of the ludlum/forsyth thrillers of yore sans the blood and gore. Interestingly enough I had given up my interest on political thrillers until this tale gave me a fresh view.

While studying the history of WWII, any over imaginative mind would ponder the question : "What would have happened had Germany won the war ? " More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 30, 2009

Aaron rated it:

One closes this gripping, moving novel with profound gratitude that it's fiction. Harris's alterna-history is vivid, unsettling, and fully-realized. Playing on Churchill's famous dictum that "History is written by the victors" Harris posits a world in which a victorious Germany dominates Europe (Churchill and the Queen, wittily, are exiled in Canada) and the Reich is busy exterminating the few Nazi leaders alive who know the truth behind the transport of Europe's Jews to the east. As i More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 09, 2011

Kate rated it:

A chilling alternate history that poses the question: what if Hitler won? A German investigator named March tries to solve a murder, but what really rivets the attention is the world he takes for granted. This is a world where the German Reich has swallowed France, England, and Russia, President Kennedy is meeting with Hitler to declare a pact between nations, and a typical personals ad in the newspaper reads "Pure Aryan doctor desires male progeny through marriage with healthy, Aryan, v More...

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Mar 07, 2011

Bonnie rated it:

I never thought I wouldn't like a book by Mr. Harris. I really liked "Pompeii", "Imperium" and "The Ghost", the first two set at the time of the Roman Empire and the third about a ghostwriter for a modern English prime minister. This book I did not enjoy at all.

"Fatherland" imagines a world in which Nazi Germany is the victor in WWII. The time is the 1960s and the main protagonist, March, is a divorced SS policeman (all police are in the SS) w More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 15, 2010

Chris rated it:

Fatherland is one of those books that has regularly crossed my path over the years, usually mentioned in an article about some other book I’d read. I finally gave it a go and checked it out of the library last week.

The novel has the feel of a Cold War thriller, but the atmosphere of the novel is even more claustrophobic than many of that genre tend to be because the action takes place in 1964, in Post World War II Germany, a Germany that won the war and continues to be ruled by Hitl More...

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Aug 13, 2011

Jesse rated it:

Favorite Quotes:

● "Then he would round a bend, or the forest would thin, and he would see the water again, sparkling in the April sun like a tray of diamonds. Two yachts skimmed the surface - children's cutouts, white triangles brilliant against the blue."

● "You love hatred and want to measure the world against it. You throw food to the beast in man. That it may grow, the beast deep within you! Let the beast in man devour man."

● " More...

1 comment like

Apr 30, 2011

Katrina rated it:

Now its very rare that I write negative thoughts on a book, but this is one of those posts, if you don't like reading that type of post then please take warning.

Fatherland is our school bookgroups next read - we're not a successful bookgroup at the moment being on our third book and never having had a meeting to discuss a book as yet. As soon as this book was decided on I was wary, the novel is an imagining of what the world would be like if Hitler had won the war. I read a book on e More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2011

Marcus rated it:

I don't know how Harris came up with the idea to set a murder mystery in an alternate history where Germany won WW II but it worked. To be clear, the focus of this book isn't Germany winning the war so alt history fans who are looking for something along the lines of Harry Turtledove's Great War series might be dissappointed. The "what if" part of this tale is just the backdrop of the story.

Fatherland revolves around the investigation of the murder of a former WW II governm More...

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Jul 26, 2010

Akuma rated it:

What if Hitler had won the Second World War? That is the premise of this book. The book takes on an alternative future whereby Germany have won the war and is one of the super powers along with the USA.
The story starts off with a body being found in a river by detective Xavier March.
As you delve deeper into Marchs' background you realise that he doesnt have the same attitude as the rest of his country men. His doubts are niggling at the back of his mind and when an American journalis More...

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Dec 11, 2008

P.Sannie rated it:

I read this book in German, even though Robert Harris wrote it in English. I think I might've missed a few subtle things, but I did like the fact that because I was reading it in German, the conversations made sense when they switched to English. The experience is similar to watching Saving Private Ryan in German and being confused when they say they don't understand what the Americans are saying, even though they are speaking German. However, the story itself is very interesting: What would More...

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Apr 16, 2010

Christie rated it:

What if Germany had successfully conquered Europe in WWII? This story takes place in Nazi Germany 1964, with Hitler about to celebrate his 75th birthday, having been in power for 31 years. President Kennedy of the United States is about to visit Berlin in an attempt to end the Cold War between the US and Germany. No one knows about the true "Final Solution" to the European Jews until the body of a high ranking SS officer washes up on shore, setting off an investigation into the Nazi's More...

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Mar 18, 2010

Indah "Threez" rated it:

Aku suka cerita-cerita alternate world seperti setiap episode serial TV Sliders. Membuat imajinasi kita berkelana membayangkan berbagai kemungkinan yang mungkin terjadi seandainya jalan sejarah tidak seperti yang kita ketahui.

Jika film Inglourious Basterds mengisahkan Hitler cs tewas lebih cepat dari waktunya, novel ini mengisahkan bagaimana seandainya Jerman menjadi pemenang Perang Dunia II, di mana Rusia kalah perang tahun 1943 dan Churchill harus kabur ke Kanada tahun 1944. Di dun More...

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Dec 28, 2008

Arthur rated it:

Xavier March is a Berlin detective in 1964 Nazi Germany as it prepares for a visit by U.S. President Kennedy on Hitler's 75th birthday. Yes, another book on what happened when Germany took over Eastern Europe.

March draws a case of an unknown drowned man, a former high Nazi official, and the plot unfolds. The basic plot, destroying/exposing a paper trail that's been created on a particular Nazi atrocity that's known by all, but not formally documented, is pretty weak.

Thi More...

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Dec 09, 2008

Eric_W rated it:

It's 1964, Joseph Kennedy is President of the United States, Adolph Hitler is about to celebrate his 75th birthday and his rule over the European Community since the war ended in 1945. Germany is harassed by partisans and terrorists in the Urals who are provided with weapons and moral support by the United States.
A rapprochement between Kennedy and Hitler is in the works, but suddenly several prominent Nazis are discovered dead, either by unexplained accident or suicide. Xavier Ma More...

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Mar 26, 2010

Palindrome rated it:

This was my first Robert Harris novel, and I was suitably impressed. The very notion of the book (imagine if Hitler had won World War II and the Nazis had continued to rule Germany well into the 1960s) had me hooked from the start. That said, the detective storyline alone would have worked in its own right, though it would have lacked the beautifully macabre background that Harris paints.

Here is a Berlin as Speer envisaged, and in reading about it one almost believes it does exist. T More...

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Jan 14, 2010

Dalleer rated it:

Alternate history novels have always appealed to me, and Fatherland is no exception. The failed Third Reich has always been a great inspiration of various alternate history novels, and in this case the author has constructed a believable and interesting imaginary world out of a victorious Nazi Germany.

It is interesting how the plot unravels itself slowly, and how the characters slowly learn of the various dark secrets that have been hidden deep within their society. This is definitel More...

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Dec 05, 2011

Govind rated it:

My previous read on alternate history with Nazi triumph was Len Deighton's "SS-GB". Irrespective of the fact that Deighton's work was a hard core thriller, what distinguishes "Fatherland" is the shocking, spine chilling feel that if this depicted world really existed, I wound not be writing this comment. That feel of cold fear gripped me while leafing through chapters. And the depiction of Albert Speer's Super Berlin the kingpin of Greater German Reich was mind-blasting, it w More...

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