"Man In The High Castle" Is Wrong and Unfounded
Article originally appeared in: Furred Reich Blog
I'll admit it: I was a History major, and the biggest reason I ever became one is because of my fascination with The Third Reich. A lot of people obviously share that fascination, as there are more American movies about The Third Reich than there are the Civil War, or any other war America has participated in. Americans aren't alone in their interest in The Third Reich, either: The face of Adolf Hitler is said to be the most recognized, famous name in the entire world second only to Jesus, and sometimes I wonder about even that. Unsurprisingly, the field of Alternative History is rich in 'what if Hitler won' stories.
The problem is, most of them aren't very good.
In fact, despite the popular interest in The Third Reich, it seems that all objectivity, reason and academic rigor go flying out the window when the Third Reich is discussed. Even when I was in university, typically objective, cool and rational academics would resort to knee-jerk, emotional language in describing The Third Reich, and otherwise intelligent, critically-thinking people suddenly believe the wildest of fantasies without so much as a double check.
That lack of rational thought has bled over into the field of alternative history. The result is that a lot of 'what ifs' that just aren't very good. 'Man In The High Castle,' sad to say, is one of those 'not very good' stories. The main premise employed in this story, namely a German-Japanese occupation of the United States, just isn't supported by primary source documents of what Hitler and The Third Reich had in store.
The probability of Germany being able to, or even wanting to, occupy the United States is exactly_zero, _and there were no viable plans by which to do so. In both public and private, Hitler repeatedly expressed no interest in occupying the United States. Not only that, it would have been logistically impossible. I'm disappointed in 'Man In The High Caste,' but what is really disappointing is how easily otherwise intelligent people believe this is actually what would have happened.
So before you read on, I want you to remove whatever preconceptions you have about Hitler and The Third Reich, hard as that may be, because that's what any good historian strives to do. For a change, let's look at only using primary sources to examine a possible German occupation of America.
Afraid not.
First of all, we have to understand Hitler's intention and his goals. The Third Reich operated under the Fuehrer Principle, which dictated that the Fuehrer's word was law, and that while there was a system of decision making, that could be pre-empted if the Fuehrer required it. That's why understanding Hitler's aims is supremely important. Sure, there might have been some documents found in Germany which planned for occupation of Britain or even America, but if those were not either 1) actually implemented or 2) signed on by the Fuehrer, then those documents can only be considered hypotheticals.
Remember, most great powers have a staff of people planning for all kinds of crazy conflict scenarios. For example, in 1974 the US declassified 'War Plan Red,' a hypothetical scenario in 1927 by which the US planned on invading Canada as a means of ending the British Empire. Let's say that America lost WWII and the country collapsed shortly after, and that an historian discovered 'War Plan Red.' Would anyone in their right mind say that the US actually planned to invade Canada? No. Because the plan wasn't signed by the chief executive, it was merely filed away as a 'just in case.' Such is also the situation with many 'uncovered war plans' from Germany.
In fact, if there were any German plans to invade the US which were written on paper, I've yet to hear of them. Even still, an understanding of the Fuehrer Principle is needed when looking at historical 'plans' dusted off in various archives.
So what did Hitler think about the United States? According to his own private conversations, he didn't have much interest in it. I would recommend reading 'Hitler's Table Talk,' a compilation of Hitler's dinner time musings from 1941-1944. Although Mein Kampf is of limited value as a primary source, since it was written for political purposes, Hitler once again claims no territorial interest in America. Finally, even in Hitler's declaration of war against the United States, he claims no territorial interest in that country.
In other words, there are several primary sources which confirm Hitler had no interest in the US, and there is no primary source which claims Hitler wanted to conquer the US. Why do so many people believe the contrary? Well, because US propaganda from WWII repeatedly drilled into its citizens' heads that the Germans were coming, and many otherwise intelligent people will believe 80-year old propaganda before actually doing any research.
Why did Hitler declare war on the US?
Ah, good question. The reason was, in short, that Germany's u-boat commanders were begging Hitler to declare war on the US. In June of 1941, President Roosevelt declared the western Atlantic the Pan-American Security Zone, whereby US ships would escort convoys of war supplies to Britain, and would actively engage in anti-submarine warfare against German ships, despite war not being declared. In addition, US ships would immediately report any u-boat sightings to the British. In effect, this was a declaration of war on Germany. The u-boat commanders thought they would only have a chance if they could fight back.
Once Pearl Harbor happened, Hitler was all too happy to join in and formally declare war on the Americans, so as to give u-boat commanders more autonomy on the seas. Hitler's opinion was confirmed by perhaps a dozen post-war interviews with German leadership. Off the top of my head, I can think of one interview with Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering.
I was astonished when Germany declared war on the United States. We should rather have accepted a certain amount of unpleasant incidents. It was clear to us that if Roosevelt were reelected, the U.S. would inevitably make war against us. This conviction was strongly held, especially with Hitler. After Pearl Harbor, although we were not bound under our treaty with Japan to come to its aid since Japan had been the aggressor, _ Hitler said we were in effect at war already, with ships having been sunk or fired upon, _ and must soothe the Japanese.
There are many other corroborations, from other members of German leadership, which confirm this view. The bottom line is, Hitler declared war on the US not out of desire to conquer the US, but because he felt that war had already started in the Atlantic.
*What would a German victory look like? *
That's another great question, and it's one that alt-history writers love to ponder. There are invariable outcomes based on how one might 'tweak' events. But let's try the most basic, generic 'alternative' timeline. The Soviet Union was always Hitler's main target. Let's assume that Germany was able to defeat the Soviets before the Normandy invasion in June on 1944. More specifically, let's say Germany won in Stalingrad, cut off Soviet access to oil in the Caucasus, and a year later, Germans had Stalin out of greater Muscovy, across the Urals and past the Caspian Sea.
The time would be February 1944. By then the Americans and British had already thrown Rommel out of North Africa and were fighting in Italy. In our timeline, the Germans had gotten Italy to quickly surrender after King Vittorio switched over to the Allies. The Germans moved into Italy and fortified it. The badly outnumbered Germans relied on the tactical brilliance of Albert Kesselring to stall the Americans, British and 'Free' French in Italy. In fact, thanks to Kesselring's planning, the Americans and British Commonwealth couldn't take Rome until June 1944, and Germans fought on in Italy until 1945.
In this alternate timeline, the Germans are able to massively reinforce Italy in March 1944 and could very well have achieved some major victories from its battle-hardened Panzer Divisions transferred from the Eastern Front. The Americans and British would have either been forced to retreat from Italy or stalemated somewhere in southern Italy. American casualties would have mounted.
Operation Overlord, which is the invasion of Normandy, would have likely failed as division after division of German armor would have reinforced the Atlantic Wall. Fuel, which was a major issue by July 1944 for Germany, would have been plentiful after the German capture of Caucasus oil fields, which would have only added to Germany's supply from Romania. With the US losing in Italy, the American Air Force would never have gained access to Italian air bases by which to bomb Romanian oil fields. With no gasoline shortages and plenty of reinforcements from the east, the invasion of Normandy would likely have failed. In the long run, Anglo American air superiority would have been challenged by Germany's Me-262 jet fighters, which by early 1945 were equipped by the first air-to-air missiles.
After losing in Normandy and Italy, how long would the US have remained in the war against Germany when it had to fight Japan instead? The Americans and British may have eventually succeeded in invading Europe, but the cost would have been millions, and those kind of casualties are something Britain did not have the manpower for and America did not have the willpower for. How long would Churchill have stayed in power had the war raged until 1947? Would the Americans have reached a separate peace with Germany? If Hitler had achieved his goal of conquest in Russia, there would be no reason for Hitler not to make a separate peace with America and thereby break the Axis with Japan, which didn't even help Germany deal with the Soviet Union.
If so, quite a different picture emerges than what we might imagine a 'Third Reich Victory' to look like. It's a world that would look a lot more like our own world than that of 'Man in the High Castle.'
In any case, a German occupation of the US would have been numerically impossible. Don't forget that Germany would also have to occupy European Russia, Poland, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, much of Yugoslavia and probably Britain for this whole thing to work. Would Germany still have enough troops left to fight on the American mainland, where every other citizen is already armed? Talented as the Germans are, even they would fall short of that task.