Entertainment & Arts
The Complete Guide to The Man in the High Castle Season 3 – Premiering 10/5
WW2 historian Paul K. DiCostanzo breaks down Amazon’s upcoming The Man in the High Castle season 3, and the hidden WW2 history driving it.
It is official, Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle Season 3 drops on October 5th, 2018. As one of the most well written and portrayed series available, fans are clamoring to discover where the show is heading after the astonishing conclusion for season 2 in December 2016. Viewers can expect more of the show’s signature multidimensional construction, meticulous attention to detail, character development, and its depiction of the sheer humanity of evil. As well as High Castle’s other indispensable quality, history.
WW2 historian Paul K. DiCostanzo takes on the most important aspect of The Man in the High Castle, it’s subtle yet critical inclusion of amazingly accurate historical detail of WW2, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and wartime America expanding into the show’s fictional 1962 – 1963. Taking a character blow-by-blow of what we know so far; Paul is breaking down the subtle and important historical details used by the writers as a hidden hand driving the entire series. It is nothing less than a complete guide to The Man in the High Castle Season 3; illustrating a historical inside look for understanding the story-within-the-story, showing the series going forward through entirely new eyes.
In this case, one can only begin with Oberst-Gruppenführer John Smith.
Oberst-Gruppenführer John Smith: The Man in the High Castle Enigma
John Smith, in the flesh
Newly promoted Oberst-Gruppenführer John Smith (Rufus Sewell) is perhaps the most complicated and deeply conflicted antagonist on the show. So much so that many viewers are not even sure he is in fact a villain as he is seen to possess many contradictory stripes. More to the point, Rufus Sewell has truly stolen the show thus far, which is no small statement given his fellow headliners. So, who is this friend/enemy/criminal-against-humanity/loving father and husband?
John Smith is, in many regards, an every man type that emerges during a foreign totalitarian occupation and subjugation similar to those which occurred in Europe during the Second World War. He, like the vast majority of those who came before him – as well as those he shares the screen with – has made some level of accommodation to the brutal foreign rule of a satanic enemy.
Yet Smith’s personal level of accommodation is clearly greater than most every other in The Man in the High Castle universe: he is a collaborator. As a former US Army Signals officer (See: Sigint), Smith made the leap to collaborate with the Nazi occupiers at some unknown juncture following their invasion. Both to fulfill his own ends – namely the protection of his family – and to be used as an agent to achieve the darkest ends of the Nazi regime. His feelings about his previous allegiance to the US haunt him deeply and influence his current choices.
When one looks back to season one, recall the conversation Helen Smith has with Joe Blake during V-A Day, revealing for the first time part of the Smith’s backstory. John in particular was raised in a family of considerable means, prior to the onset of the Great Depression. After the economic collapse, Helen describes their life with the words, “We had nothing, we had less than nothing.” Smith is clearly a man who remembers the economic inequity of the Depression in the defunct United States, and his fallen position within it.
Additionally Smith’s US Army experience, to the extent that we know of it, was a near crippling experience. As shown in the Season 2 episode, “Duck and Cover,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido asks why he displays a medal from his US military service during the Solomon Islands campaign. Smith remarks that it is a reminder of “the consequences of the failure of command.” A clear indication that the US military of their timeline was not nearly as effective and successful as our own, and fatally so.
Hardly the least of Oberst-Gruppenführer Smith’s soul crushing experiences was viewing, with Helen at a considerable distance, the atomic bombing of Washington D.C. on December 11th, 1945 by Nazi Germany (Note: This is the four year anniversary historically of Nazi Germany’s declaration of war on the United States).
When looking into the nature of Smith’s collaboration with the Reich, upon deeper inspection, Smith is a man who has no shortage of blood on his hands in his personal complicity. In addition to being an SS Oberst-Gruppenführer in his everyday work to keep enemies of the Reich at bay, he has also been involved in mass-murder, ethnic cleansing, and outright genocide.
The multiple, however subtle, references to a Cincinnati extermination camp critically allude to this fact. From the Neutral Zone escapee book store owner found and killed in Season 1 by the Marshal (Burn Gorman). As well as Rudolph Wegener (Carsten Norgaard) speaking about their deeds together in Cincinnati “spilling blood,” and Wegener’s observation that afterward Smith no longer entertains his passion for sailing – alluding to the audience an intense personal guilt harbored by Smith. John Smith, in total, has blood up to his elbows.
If viewed within the scope of historic post-World War II war crime indictments and prosecution, a man fitting the profile of John Smith most certainly would have stood in the dock alongside figures such as Göering or Ribbontrop at Nuremberg, facing charges for crimes against humanity, waging wars of abject aggression, and genocide for their respective roles in perpetrating the Holocaust. There is no doubt Smith would have also shared their ultimate fate, death by hanging following a guilty verdict.
Or perhaps just as likely is seeing an end similar to that of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. “Il Duce” was the recipient of mob justice, resulting in a summary execution by firing squad from local Italian partisans in April 1945. Events that culminated with Mussolini as well as his mistress Clara Petacci’s corpses being hung upside down and spat upon at a petrol station in Milan.
They took John Smith’s soul, and now they have taken his only son
Through Season 1 and 2, we also see Smith subverting the state to hide his son’s diagnosis of muscular dystrophy. Smith among his various actions to aggressively protect of his own family, murders their family doctor and longtime friend that diagnosed Thomas to ensure the secret remains, indeed, secret.
John Smith’s older brother, whom he apparently worshiped, also suffered from the same disease as does John’s son, Thomas. Smith clearly is unable to reconcile his personal compassion and understanding with the malformed draconian racial policies of the Third Reich. Smith has been both complicit with the heinous crimes of the state, whilst seeking to undermine it for his own son’s benefit. Smith’s plan ultimately fails however, as Thomas in his very honest, dutiful nature submits himself to the authorities to be euthanized.
With a newly released trailer by Amazon, we see a recently promoted Oberst-Gruppenführer Smith – an SS rank historically only held by Reinhard Heydrich (Ray Proscia) – and subordinate only to Heinrich Himmler (Kenneth Tigar), with a presumable alternate version of the dreaded Nazi criminal doctor, Josef Mengele (John Hans Tester). In the scene, it is made clear that Nazi research and development knows of certain individuals’ ability to travel between universes. It is hardly a giant leap of a prediction to know what Smith is thinking during this presentation, as it could be a way to have Thomas back – or at least a version of him that is healthy and originates from a very similar time line.
John Smith Protecting His Country and People?
When last we left the occupied United States, the continent was in chaos due to uprisings triggered by the news of Hitler’s death. John Smith as the highest ranking official in the American Reich is tasked to manage it. When reinforcements arrive from Berlin, ostensibly present to help aid the invasion of the Pacific States and put down the various civil rebellions, Smith clearly eschews the SD Gruppenfurher’s idea to raze Savannah, Georgia for the purpose of making an example to the populace as to the consequences of further civil unrest.
When Smith and his trusted lieutenant are shown speaking privately in Smith’s car briefly thereafter, Smith says, “We won’t destroy one of our own cities.” His line, however quick, is crucial to understanding how Smith views his role serving the American Reich. Smith clearly sees himself in a caretaker/protector role within a brutal system; helping ease a situation Smith believes would be far worse without his direct involvement. It is a common and often inaccurate claim made by most collaborators in Smith’s situation, better known by some as “Petainism.” In short, a very clear and eloquent line of self-justifying bull shit.
Marshal Philippe Petain. President of Puppet state Vichy France, WWI Hero at Verdun, Nazi Collaborator imprisoned after WWII.
Yet to this point, Smith’s loyalty to the Reich is a matter of great consternation. At the end of Season 2 he is the apparent hero who foiled the major assassination and coup attempt, whilst halting a Third World War, this time against Japan.
The reward for his act of exceptional gallantry? The sacrifice of his beloved only son, to the demands of the state he so diligently serves.
Yet what makes this all more agonizing, nay, appalling? Smith experiencing this tragedy due to his raising Thomas to hold Nazi values so dear that Thomas comes forward of his own accord, voluntarily giving his life to the demands of the collective, as if enacting a divine mandate. No doubt the cost of Smith’s penance, should any truly be possible following Smith’s heinous crimes, are staggering. Yet given where the audience last see’s Smith, he appears on the verge of considerable revelations regarding his knowledge of The Man in the High Castle universe.
What we do know of Smith, when last we saw him, was his being ushered into the vault of films collected by Hitler – and presumably being granted carte blanche to watch them as he sees fit. With a man as perceptive as Smith, undoubtedly he will learn a great deal about their role and value. How this new information will change John Smith personally is genuinely unpredictable.
To put Smith and his beloved family into their rightful context, one need only to remember the words of Juliana Crain when reporting back to George Dixon, “You can almost forget they’re Nazis.” The audience falls into the same trap, yet must never allow themselves to remain within it. The Smiths have as much blood and complicity on their hands as do any other characters in the series. Though what is most damning is that they’re the greatest collaborators with the Nazi occupiers, and no deed may ever redeem them of all the destruction they have directly wrought against their own people. However, it seems The Man in the High Castle Season 3 may begin a long and dark path to ultimate redemption for John Smith, if any is truly possible.
As redemption arcs go, they require a lack of ambiguity for a character in the mind of the audience. Indeed it is the forlorn Joe Blake, likely rotting in some dank Berlin hole in the ground, that is due for greater clarity of character in Season 3.
Joe Blake & Martin Heussman: The Son Escaping the Fate of His Father?
Joe Blake and Daddy Dukes, Martin Heusmann.
Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank) is one of the most morally ambiguous characters that the audience has encountered. Joe is a man whose genuine superpower is the ability to simply survive in one piece. Though conflicted, the benevolent side of Joe’s nature seems to extend only insofar as it benefits him. With very few exceptions, Joe comes off as a magnificently awful bullshit artist – other than the moment of, “Daddy, don’t unleash a nuclear Holocaust.”
Joe Blake bears a great deal of personal guilt, self-loathing and intense pain of abandonment regarding his father. What Joe wants and believes is never clear or perhaps even consistent in his mind, let alone to the audience. However, The Man in the High Castle Season 3 will likely provide that clarity in Joe’s character given his largely unwitting role in events far greater than himself.
When last we left him, he was being dragged off along with his traitor father to some dark and high security cell in the bowels of Berlin. Though Joe did not commit any crime personally, his relationship to the recently removed focal point of power is guilt by association, a common and ultimately damning charge during everyday life in the court of a despot.
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It is truly unknown how Joe will escape his shackles and return to the world of the living. However, you can be certain that he will. Joe Blake will find some way to escape his prison shackles, plunging right back into the fray for The Man in the High Castle season 3.
However, it still doesn’t answer the burning question: Why are Kirk Fogg from Legends of the Hidden Temple and Joe Blake the same person?
His father may well be another story, but even former acting Chancellor Martin Heusmann (Sebastion Roche) is far from finished. As a character clearly based in part on both Nazi architect and Armaments Minister, Albert Speer, and Nazi-Germany SS and US NASA rocket designer Wernher von Braun, he was chosen to be Acting Chancellor by Hitler in the event he was ever incapacitated due to Heusmann’s apolitical nature and unquestionable loyalty. Yet Heussman ultimately takes advantage of this arrangement, undertaking a coup in league with the notorious “Hitler’s Hangman,” Reinhardt Heydrich.
(Left to Right): Albert Speer, architect and Armaments Minister. Wernher von Braun, German SS Rocket Scientist, and later NASA employee who put Armstrong and Aldrin on the Moon.
In so far as we know, not all of Heusmann’s co-conspirators have been identified. More to the point, leadership of the Reich has not been determined and is far from certain. That being said, the fight for succession to the post of Führer will most definitely play a central role in the events of The Man in the High Castle season 3. It is one of the grand story arc’s in the series that has been alluded to since the very first episode.
It would seem likely that Himmler is the front runner to become the next Führer. As the head of the SS and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), all of the levers of the security apparatus are in his hands. In a totalitarian state, that is a very clear way for one to fill a vacuum of power – with the exception of Soviet NKVD chief Lavrenty Beria.
Though we can also reasonably conclude that there are other remaining contenders for the position of Führer, including the Propaganda Chief/evil genius Dr. Josef Goebbels. It also stands to reason that a significant Wehrmacht figure might emerge in the struggle for dominance as well. History can attest it wouldn’t be the first time such a figure rode the barrel of a tank to ultimate power.
Except Michael Dukakis, of course…
Juliana Crain: The Man in the High Castle Lynchpin
Juliana Crain, one of the most wanted fugitives in the Reich or the Pacific States.
For all intents and purposes, Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) is/was/will be the lynch pin to the fate of every other character in The Man in the High Castle.
Juliana’s so-called “unnatural mind” has the attention of Hawthorne Abendsen. No matter the circumstances of where she falls in a given universe, Juliana always takes the high road and is willing to try to find the best in others, regardless of the expectations for the role they’re supposed to play in that world.
For two seasons Juliana has torn across the former United States trying to understand the untimely death of her younger half-sister Trudy (Conor Leslie) – as well as to find the “way out.”
Though Juliana does not yet have all of the answers, she does appear to have her sister back – or more accurately, one of infinite sisters from another universe. This is Phillip K. Dick after all.
Yet this discovery does not signal an end to Juliana’s journey, or that she has somehow escaped the trail of destruction she has left behind. Juliana is guilty of violently coercing a high ranking Nazi official to broadcast the death of Hitler before the Reich desired, and stands complicit in his death as he was executed for doing so. Nor is it clear how Juliana’s relationship with John Smith will impact the nature of how those crimes are prosecuted, or the fact she fled while under his exclusive protection.
Juliana also murdered another three members of the resistance – albeit in genuine self-defense – including Trudy’s biological father, the late George Dixon (Tate Donovan).
It may be easy to conclude Abendsen presented Trudy to Juliana out of kindness and decency; including for all she has done to prevent a nuclear war. Abendsen however is also likely considering new possibilities for how Juliana can be useful preventing similar incidents in the future; or perhaps being instrumental taking a greater chunk out of the Germans and Japanese.
This remains to be seen. Still, Juliana will not be able to escape her actions forever, as there is no woman more wanted both in the Pacific States and the Reich entering The Man in the High Castle Season 3.
What also remains to be seen are the details of Frank Frink’s presumed fate following his suicide bombing of Kempetai HQ in San Francisco.
Frank Frink: The Missing Link for The Man in the High Castle Season 3
The late Frank Frink
Yes, in all probability Frank Frink (Rupert Evans) is dead. Unless he miraculously survived the car bomb explosion as did Chief Inspector Kido, we can reasonably presume the Frank we have come to know is gone.
With traveling the multiverse clearly in play, Rupert Evans as Frank Frink will likely endure in some meaningful form. Putting aside the distinct plausibility Frank’s character will appear in flashbacks, this late suicide bomber is not done in the greater story arc proceeding into The Man in the High Castle Season 3.
Yet without even a hint of what that could possibly be, there is no basis in which to predict his future involvement in The Man in the High Castle. However, there is one contact of Frank’s who is believed to be playing a major role in The Man in the High Castle Season 3, Mark Sampson.
Mark Sampson: A Noble & Courageous Bad Ass
Mark Sampson
According to the powers that be for The Man in the High Castle, Mark Sampson (Michael Gaston) will be a frequently reoccurring character in Season 3. For a figure that has had a very limited role in the first two seasons, Sampson’s impact has vastly outweighed the small amount of screen time he has had thus far.
While it’s largely impossible to predict how the writers will choose to use Sampson going forward, it could not be more fantastic that they’re doing so.
Sampson is a figure in the narrative who can and has provided some much needed depth in regards to world building. More importantly, Sampson is a practicing Jew secretly raising his children Jewish. Yet it’s his recollections that have been so haunting, and so good.
Sampson was living in Boston at the beginning of Nazi Germany’s invasion of the US eastern seaboard, and his retelling – while brief – is highly alarming. As an American, it is the pinnacle of disturbing to visualize a pogrom occurring in Boston Commons in an act of anticipatory obedience; a behavior seen in other nations occupied by the Axis during the Second World War.
Though Sampson’s greatest value takes the form of his ability to see the bigger picture with his very genuine confidence, who proves very sagely in those assessments:
• “I don’t plan on dying, Frank. But you can’t live your life in fear. I was back east at the end of the war, in Boston… Yeah. You had to see it to believe it, Frank. Overnight, lynch mobs were murdering Jews because suddenly we were less than human.”
• “And Hitler and the Nazi’s – I mean, I don’t care how it looks. They won’t last. One thing I realized about my people is we got a different sense of time. These may be dark years, but we’ll survive. We always do.”
• “Well, those of us who came out in one piece. We buried service weapons underground, well wrapped in oil, and we vowed revenge.”
This man is a genuine bad ass, and can only be part of the solution. His increased role in The Man in the High Castle Season 3 will only improve the narrative. It is fair to say, under the circumstances of this alternate 1962, Mark Sampson is one of the few people you would want to share a foxhole with. Sampson is confident, wise, inspiring, brave, and a true leader. One cannot wait to learn more about him, and how he will fit into the mesmerizing bigger picture.
Speaking of learning more about characters, no two characters throughout the series have been more defined by their contrast to each other than Ed McCarthy and Robert Childan. Both of which are threads in the tapestry of the narrative The Man in the High Castle Season 3 is set to address.
Ed McCarthy & Robert Childan: The Man in the High Castle Odd Couple
Entertainments best odd couple in decades.
This absolutely perfect odd couple is on their way to the Neutral Zone, but do not expect them to necessarily arrive.
The audience clearly sees Frank Frink’s bombing of the Kempeitai HQ in San Fransisco, while Ed McCarthy (DJ Qualls) and Robert Childan (Brennan Brown) are on the bridge crossing the bay. Given the circumstances of such a high profile assassination attempt of all the top Japanese military commanders in the Pacific States, you best believe no one is leaving their territory with ease.
As known associates of Frank, both Childan and Ed have immediately become person’s of interest for the Kempeitai. If they manage to escape what should be a massive dragnet following the bombing, it’s unfathomable to conclude they won’t be taken into custody.
Once in the hands of the Kempeitai, one can only hope both characters escape with the whole skin. If they do, the price exacted by the Japanese authorities will be exceptionally high. Realistically, they could both also simply face summary execution, despite how poor of a turn that would be for two characters that have become very endeared to the audience.
The Man in the High Castle writers have done a magnificent job bringing forth two awesome characters, and bonding them despite all their mutually antithetical quirks and faults. We haven’t seen the last of these two gentlemen but both are a long way from being safe.
If being safe is one’s primary objective, a quest for truth is an unacceptable risk. For Nobusuke Tagomi, his quest for truth seems a most perilous path The Man in the High Castle Season 3 will build upon.
Nobusuke Tagomi: On a Quest for Truth
Trade Minister Tagomi
Perhaps more than any other single character in The Man in the High Castle, Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) stands as the character many hold most dear in this incredibly complex story. He is the model of the best of Japanese culture, irrespective of the given timeline.
Tagomi is a man desperately seeking a personal peace, having lost his wife and son. Moreover, he only seeks the purest form of truth, even if such a truth is so fundamentally opposed to a world he knows, and contradicts what he has always known to be true himself.
If there is one person in this myriad web of narrative one would want to discover the secrets of traveling between universes, Tagomi is your guy.
His experience traveling to the October 1962 that we know has innumerable consequences. Foremost, it is logical to deduce that one can only travel to a universe in which their identical counterpart is either dead, or never existed in the first place. Secondly, his experience with his living family and repairing the domestic damage done by his drunkard duplicate has given Tagomi new purpose.
In Tagomi’s return, he brings back a film showing the US testing a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, better known as Operation Castle Bravo. With the cooperation of Inspector Kido and Oberst-Gruppenführer Smith, nuclear devastation was averted.
The audience last sees Tagomi receiving an unexpected delivery of films from Lemuel Washington. Tagomi is visibly pleased by this revelation. There is every reason to conclude that Tagomi is looking at his world very differently than before he made the jump to the alternate universe he arrived.
What Tagomi’s actions may be going forward, or what they might entail remain to be seen. However it is fair to conclude he is no longer a simple functionary in the Japanese government.
The venerable Trade Minister has undergone a profound experience changing him forever. Coupled with his already clearly established priority for truth, Tagomi seems but one small step away from subverting the current world order. Needless to say, he is a new ally in the quest to try and create a better and more peaceful world.
What must never be forgotten however, is Tagomi will have to overcome a strongly conditioned sense of loyalty to his own people. Before the Japanese were defeated in the Second World War, his people held a deep belief that their Emperor was a living god – a direct descendant of Amaterasu. Unfortunately for Tagomi, his universe altering revelations may likely require a deeply problematic change in personal values to fully break from his divine mandate, and actively undermine the Chrysanthemum Throne. After all, Trade Minister Tagomi is only human.
Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido: An Unpredictable Character Arc
The relentless Chief Inspector Kido
As characters go, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido (Joel de la Fuente) has been the most austere and hardest to read throughout the first two seasons. Yet we have learned that for all his brutal crimes – namely gassing Frank Frink’s sister and two children for literally nothing – he does possess honor, and a genuine ability to sacrifice himself in the name of a greater peace – if necessary. His actions in passing on the film that averted global nuclear war were invaluable.
For all of that, one still can by no means consider him anything but a completely loyal servant to his Emperor and Empire. Many aspects of Kido’s life may be in flux following the events that ended Season 2, but one should expect nothing in regards to a serious character change without further evidence.
Kido’s priority in The Man in the High Castle Season 3 will be the massive investigation of the suicide bombing by Frank at the conclusion of Season 2. If anything, Kido may become more implacable and dangerous as the series continues. Moreover, he will catch wind of the traveler phenomenon. It is when this fact becomes clear to him, which it likely should, that his character arch will assume a greater certainty.
Nicole Dörmer: The Makings for a Tragic Character?
The Third Reich trail blazer, Nicole Dörmer
Joe Blakes feminist crush Nicole Dörmer (Bella Heathcote) is one of the most unpredictable characters in this entire story. Given the way she made her way into Joe’s life, the audience cannot possibly help but be suspicious of her motives and goals.
Nicole is clearly the daughter of a pharmaceutical magnate whose primary client is the German Wehrmacht (military), and the SS. Born into genuine gilded privilege, Nicole is best described as a member of the Reich’s plutocracy and aristocracy. Yet she and her fellow young cohorts are the counter-culture movement in Nazi Germany. Nicole is, for all intents and purposes, at the head of the feminist movement in the highly patriarchal Nazi state.
Historically, women who lived under National Socialism had a very specific and predefined role. Motherhood and family were the limits for most women in Nazi Germany, and very few women of note stepped outside the bounds of their subjugated place in that society. Perhaps more accurately, National Socialism saw women as little more than a brood mare for the state. Nicole is dead set to change that about her world.
Aside from these facts, Nicole is a wild-card. It is impossible to know at present where her loyalties truly lay. She is clearly very smart and capable, but how she is choosing to use her abilities in regards to the current intrigues of Joe Blake and his father are entirely unknowable. What we can be sure of is that it’s very unlikely Nicole is purely a bystander of chance in the events ending Season 2, and their continuation in Season 3 of The Man in the High Castle.
Speaking entirely as a member of the audience, one wants her to be on a side that doesn’t aid the Nazi state. Yet if we have learned anything, the natural ambiguity of almost every character in the series dictates the audience be on guard. Everyone in this show has their own very specific agenda, and we can be absolutely sure that we have no idea Nicole’s full desire or allegiance. Chances are that we won’t have to wait long to see where she stands among the many human pawns in this greater game of chess.
Lemuel Washington: A Paragon of Realistic Idealism
Lemuel Washington, front and center, holding up Juliana and Joe for an infamous film
Lem Washington (Rick Worthy) is likely the most noble character this side of Tagomi. We know very little about him other than he is a major member of the resistance, he is the closest character to the Man in the High Castle Hawthorne Abendsen, and he is Muslim.
Lem Washington is in many ways a saintly figure in this epic. While having no issue getting into the muck, Lem always seems to rise above it. For all that his resistance work entails, he holds a certain belief that one cannot defeat this enemy by abandoning the values and ideals he is risking his life to protect. Seemingly incorruptible, Lem serves as the figure which is the best the American resistance has to offer.
The choice of Lem Washington to be such a noble character fighting for a better life and higher American ideals seems to be an intentional paradox on the part of the writers. As a middle aged black man, Lem very likely knew well the United States before the war. As it was a country where in certain areas segregation was legally enforced, he’s not only fighting for traditional American values, but a better America should it ever come in his lifetime.
For all that it is worth, Lem’s fight is a continuation of the Double-V campaign that occurred during the historic Second World War. A fight for both victory against America’s external enemies, and victory over racism and prejudice at home. Needless to say that Lem may be the greatest idealist of all. Yet in this show, the matter of race is a lot more disturbing than most have likely considered.
Take note that really the only time the audience sees any person of color is when the scene occurs in the Pacific States. For the portions of the story shown in the Reich, it is completely whitewashed, and this subtle fact alludes to a much more devastating truth: slavery is legal in the Third Reich.
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In the brief 12 years that was the Nazi experiment historically, forced labor was commonplace. This was made even more prevalent during the war, when the German government would import large numbers of needed workers for war production from their occupied territories. Depending on where a worker fell on the Nazi racial scale, that would almost entirety dictate the treatment they would receive.
If a worker was imported to Germany from France or Norway, their experience working in Germany was often not disagreeable, according to British historian Roger Moorhouse (See: Berlin at War, 2010). On the other hand, if you were a Slav being sent to work in Germany from Ukraine or Belorussia, an “Ostarbeiter,” or Eastern worker, it was truly slave labor as Nazi racial policy deemed Slavic peoples “untermensch,” or subhuman.
It is very likely the sinister reason we never see any people of color in the American Reich is due to slavery being reestablished. Those with dark skin whose ancestry traces back to the African continent were also considered untermenschen by Nazi Germany. In season one, we hear Heydrich literally boasting to Oberst-Gruppenführ Smith’s family about his taming and breaking the resistance of various subject tribes in Africa itself. Hence Lemuel’s fight and perspective might be even more overwhelming than we can truly understand.
As a rule however, wherever Lem goes, so goes the story. He is the truest compass to both the characters below, and even Abendsen above. Lemuel Washington merits the closest of attention at all points moving forward.
Hawthorne Abendsen: The Greatest Unknown in The Man in the High Castle
THE Man in the High Castle
I doubt anyone would fault me for saying Stephen Root is the perfect actor to portray this most enigmatic of characters, Hawthorne Abendsen (Stephen Root). This unpredictable, mercurial and tortured genius that is the key to everything may be the closest character to being genuinely unknowable as is possible.
Putting aside what we might be able to glean from the original novel, almost nothing is known about Abendsen in this series. From what can be seen, High Castle lives in remote isolation as the most wanted man in the occupied United States, changing locations often with the help of his most trusted lieutenant and liaison to the resistance, Lemuel Washington.
Abendsen has an advanced knowledge of traveling the multiverse, and likely coordinates his recruited agents that do travel and bring him new films to analyze, so as to avoid major catastrophe in his world. He also seems to view his Sisyphean task like working on an endless puzzle. The most important piece being Juliana Crane.
At the conclusion of The Man in the High Castle Season 2, Juliana’s half sister Trudy is presented to her by Abendsen. While there is absolutely no question that Juliana’s sister was shot and killed by the Kempeitai, it’s a minor jump to conclude that this isn’t Juliana’s Trudy. This is a traveling Trudy, who clearly originates from a different – albeit incredibly similar – universe. Very likely is this Trudy working for Abendsen as a film runner, and in some sense represents the “way out” Juliana has so desperately sought since the beginning on the High Castle saga.
Two things one can be certain about regarding Abendsen going forward:
He has a deep amount of personal care for the physical and emotional well-being of Juliana, and by extension Trudy as well. In fact he downright admires Juliana and her unnatural mind.
The other matter that is certain is going forward, both Juliana and Abendsen will need to work together. Her consistently unwavering judgement, and his massive knowledge of the multiverse are two invaluable tools that might make it possible to rid the United States from foreign occupation. Though however one chooses to look at it, The Man in the High Castle has his most important “puzzle piece” at hand, but who can say it will be enough? More to the point, the very nature of his character – as the audience has come to understand him – knows full well the fate of everyone is in the hands of a very dubious man – well intentioned or otherwise.
Yes, at times he seems one or two steps removed from Milton in Office Space. Though it’s fair to say that he is just a wee bit more stable and communicative… most of the time…
Do you have a question about The Man in the High Castle, or WW2 in general? Email Paul at the WW2 Brain Bucket Reader Q&A – the monthly column that answers all your WW2 related questions.
Want to learn more about alternate history of WW2? Listen to Paul K. DiCostanzo’s D-Day interview on KFAB 1110 with Gary Sadlemyer about if D-Day failed.
Write to Paul K. DiCostanzo at pdicostanzo@tgnreview.com