Entertainment & Arts
The Man in the High Castle Universe: How the Axis Won WW2
WW2 historian Paul K. DiCostanzo answers the major question nobody knows about The Man in the High Castle universe: How did the Axis win WW2?
With the interminable wait for season three of Amazon Prime’s portrayal of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle concluding on October 5th, we pose the singular question underlying the series thus far: How could the Axis powers have defeated the United States and its Allies in The Man in the High Castle Universe? The following interpretation is one possible “universe” of The Man in the High Castle. One in which we explore the biggest question for most viewers: How the Axis won WW2, or more specifically, “How did the US lose World War II?”
As the show straddles the genres of Alternate History and Science Fiction, the world of High Castle is based on counter-factual history. That being said, the scenario below is extrapolated from historical events that could explain the tragic collapse of the Allies, and ultimate rise of the Axis powers.
The Man in the High Castle Universe: What went wrong?
(A stark contrast in the two above maps that mark the conclusion of the historical and fictional WW2)
For an American living in the 21st Century, Allied victory in the Second World War is even more fundamental to their worldview than the American Revolution of 1776. It is, after all, the founding story of the modern United States and the current world order as we know it.
The concept of the Allies losing to the satanic enemy of Nazi Germany and its Axis collaborators hits home in primordial fashion. Axis victory is a concept so deeply disturbing, the dystopia such a defeat would entail is nearly unthinkable. Yet in the High Castle universe, that is exactly what happened. So, what exactly went wrong in the High Castle timeline?
How the Axis won WW2: The Man in the High Castle Universe Historical Contradiction
In the High Castle universe, many well known events of the Second World War have outcomes clearly contrary to the viewer’s universe. In both the series and the classic novel, details are scarce as to exactly how the Axis managed victory over the Allies.
Did the U.S. HAVE to Use the Atomic Bombs in WW2?
Putting aside the little information divulged by the show so far – including Nazi Germany’s clear development and use of the first strategic nuclear weapon – what happened to the Allied nations that allowed this disaster to occur? While there are several distinct possibilities, one must start with the life and career of one Sir Winston Spencer Churchill.
The British Empire & the Alternate Life of Winston Churchill in The Man in the High Castle Universe
In the Man in the High Castle, there may never have been the famous “V for Victory” salute
Only on select instances in the first three seasons of The Man in the High Castle has there been any sight – let alone mention – of Sir Winston Churchill.
Dubbed history’s “Last Lion,” outside of the world of High Castle, Churchill served as Britain’s legendary wartime Prime Minister and, prior to that, stood as the highly unpopular, staunch anti-Nazism advocate during the 1930’s.
For many historians and those who were members of the British government in 1940, the overwhelming consensus in hindsight is that Winston Churchill was the only leader present that could have rallied the British Empire in their desperate fight against Hitler.
So, what could have happened to Churchill in the High Castle universe?
Winston Churchill & His Many Death Defying Exploits
Churchill is a man that escaped imminent death many times in his life, living to age 90, passing in 1965.
He served in the British Army as a young man on the British Raj’s northwest frontier and in Sudan.
While still a young man Churchill also worked as a war correspondent in Cuba, assigned to cover the Spanish-American War.
Churchill was even famously kept as a POW during the Boer War as a non-combatant reporter – famously engineering a daring escape that launched his political career in the House of Commons soon thereafter.
For his final personal combat adventure, Churchill fought in the trenches during the First World War on the infamous Western Front. He deployed after resigning as First Lord of the Admiralty subsequent to his hand in the disaster at Gallipoli.
According to British historian and Winston Churchill biographer Andrew Roberts, the man had no less than 20 documented near death experiences.
Winston Churchill could have perished at any of the aforementioned points, however in the world of High Castle it seems most plausible that his fate was sealed crossing a New York City midtown street.
Sir Winston was hit by a taxi on 5th Avenue in Manhattan on December 13th, 1931. The accident – which cracked two ribs and lacerated his scalp – was another brush with death he amazingly survived, and one that very nearly realized his mortal demise.
Had he passed, the future Prime Minister would never have lived to undertake his “wilderness years” out of government, advocating his incredibly unpopular stance about the dangers of Nazism and the desperate need for British and French rearmament in the late 1930’s.
Churchill in a wheel chair leaving Lenox Hospital
With the national trauma afflicting the UK and France following their horrific First World War experience, there is a strong possibility Britain and France may have been even less prepared for the coming war than they were historically, if there was no Churchill hectoring from the wings.
More disturbing yet, the Western Allies may have decided to negotiate a Carthaginian peace agreement with Adolf Hitler – similar in spirit to the shambolic Munich Pact. Historically, there was a so-called “peace party” in government following Churchill’s appointment as Prime Minster. Theirs was a small group that may have had greater influence in Churchill’s absence.
As portrayed for dramatic effect – if not for complete historical accuracy – in the 2017 blockbuster Their Darkest Hour, there was briefly a debate early in Churchill’s War Cabinet that considered approaching Germany via Italy for peace terms that would have ended the conflict in June 1940.
Lord Halifax, then British Foreign Minister and well known arch appeaser in the Neville Chamberlain government, proposed probing the Italian ambassador in London exploring the possibility of then neutral Mussolini to mediate said peace agreement to achieve a general European end of hostilities.
Despite Hitler’s claim in June 1940, according to German general Franz Halder’s personal diary, that Hitler desired a peace that “She [Great Britain] felt honorable;” in which Britain would recognize German conquest on the continent and keep British colonial holdings – it was a chimera. As is well documented, Hitler venerated the British. Yet he was clearly revealed to be a man one could never negotiate with in good faith.
“You take Hitler for another Wilhelm I, the old gentleman who took Alsace-Lorraine from us and that was all there was to it. But Hitler is Genghis Khan.” – French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, June 1940
In the words of then French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud in 1940, “You take Hitler for another Wilhelm I, the old gentleman who took Alsace-Lorraine from us and that was all there was to it. But Hitler is Genghis Khan.”
Churchill’s conclusion was that any peace agreement with Nazi Germany would have likely included the surrender of the Royal Navy – a devastating possibility for a marine superpower such as the British. Had such an arrangement come to pass, it would have bolstered the paltry Kriegsmarine – the German navy – of 1940, making Nazi Germany significantly stronger strategically.
The Swastika at Sea – Deutschland Rules the Waves?
Kriegsmarine Admiral Graff Spee scuttled in Montevideo, Uruguay at the Battle of the River Plate
In preparation for a general European war, the Kriegsmarine undertook Plan Z – a massive construction project for both the surface fleet and U-Boat arm, aiming to create fighting parity with the British Royal Navy which traditionally it did not have.
Plan Z however was not scheduled for completion until 1943, four years after Nazi Germany invaded Poland and launched Europe into war.
At that juncture in 1940, Germany’s naval presence – with the exception of the devastating U-Boat campaign in the Battle of the Atlantic – was deeply mismatched against Britain, the greatest marine superpower in 1940. It was a serious strategic deficiency for Nazi Germany at war.
With the absence of Winston Churchill, Germany could complete a peace in the West, one that would likely include the surrender of the Royal Navy. With the Royal Navy absorbed into the Kriegsmarine, the remaining Allies faced a grand strategic nightmare of Germany’s challenging control for the worlds oceans.
The fear of Germany gaining a significant blue water naval presence was so visceral by June 1940, Churchill ordered the attack and seizure of French Naval warships, most infamously at the Port of Oran in Mers El-Kabir.
While the French did not have the presence on the high seas as did the British, it was enough that the British did everything possible to see that Hitler did not gain its powers after the armistice with France.
Should the Germans have seized it in fact, it may have given Hitler his bridge across the English Channel, presenting a genuine opportunity to invade the British Isles he never realistically had.
As for the grand strategic situation of the US, the Royal Navy in German hands could have made the invasion of North America possible, albeit at a later time. According to eminent Second World War historian Gerhard Weinberg, it was a war that Hitler believed was the final step to world domination – likely following his death.
Achieving such a Carthaginian peace with the Western Allies would furthermore negate the use of Wehrmacht divisions to defend occupied France from a cross-channel invasion. Germany would also be spared from the British Royal Airforce’s (RAF) Bomber Command, and its nighttime strategic area bombing campaign targeting German cities.
Such a scenario would have generated many new opportunities never available to Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Namely, a full-scale attempt at Hitler’s great personal crusade: the destruction of the Communist USSR.
The Soviet Union: Operation Barbarossa Redux – A Major Factor in How the Axis Won WW2 in the High Castle Universe
The Soviet flag upon the Reichstag, a sight unknown if the Axis won WW2
At 01:00 local time on 22 June, 1941, the massive force of the German Wehrmacht opened fire across the Soviet Union’s Western frontier from the Baltic to the Black seas. In doing so, they were the first shots of the greatest military struggle in human history.
Hitler’s invasion of the USSR expanded the Second World War in what was his greatest undertaking to date – the conquest of the Soviet Union. In doing so, Hitler aimed to succeed where Napoleon in 1812 and Charles XII of Sweden in 1707 had abjectly failed.
The Eastern Front, by any fair measure, is where the delicate balance of victory or defeat lay during the Second World War.
According to British historian Andrew Roberts, 4 out of 5 Wehrmacht troops killed in combat during the Second World War died by the bloody maw that was Stalin’s Red Army.
Hitler’s Greatest Purpose: The Destruction of Bolshevism
The German conception of Lebensraum, or living space, in the Western Soviet Union
In Nazi ideology there was no greater enemy than that of the Soviet Union. The Nazis believed the Slavic peoples to be “untermenchen” – or subhumans. Furthermore, the western USSR had the largest Jewish population of any nation in 1941.
Moreover, Hitler saw Soviet power as the product of the “Judeo-Bolshevic conspiracy”, a ridiculous conspiracy theory claiming Soviet Communism was a device developed by the Jewish people to enslave the human race.
Prescribers to this theory point to the various high profile Jewish Bolsheviks, such as Leon Trotsky and Grigory Zinoviev as evidence. Never mind that these theorists could not account for the obvious – Soviet despot Josef Stalin. Stalin, who even attended Russian Orthodox seminary prior to discovering his religion of Marxism-Leninism, clearly never sat down to a Seder on Passover.
More to the point, the western Soviet Union was what Hitler saw as German “lebensraum,” or living space, for future colonies nourishing his new Germanic civilization, reverting its current inhabitants to serfdom.
(Article Continues Below…)
Listen to WW2 historian Paul K. DiCostanzo’s Guest Appearance on Podding Through Time & it’s deep dive into Soviet history leading up to Operation Barbarossa!
This coveted area included the fertile farming lands of the Ukraine, immense coal reserves in the Donbass, a wellspring of oil in the Caucasus region, and a massive reserve of slave labor. In Hitler’s original conception of Operation Barbarossa, Germany sought to control the Western USSR from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan.
The acquisition of a strategic prize such as Eurasia would have provided the German war machine with bottomless resources, eliminating Germany’s historical material constraints during the war. As a result, furthering German ambitions for conquest to nightmarish propositions; lending heavily to how the Axis won WW2 in The Man in the High Castle universe.
Fictional Success vs. Historical Failure in The Man in the High Castle Universe
Historically, Soviet despot Josef Stalin died of a stroke in his bed at his Kuntsevo dacha – in High Castle? Not so much
Despite tremendous success in the first two years of its Eastern crusade, Nazi Germany’s fight against the Red Army ultimately spelled its doom.
Yet in the High Castle Universe, Hitler clearly succeeded where he failed historically. Joe Blake recalls Stalin’s execution occurring in 1949, four years earlier than his historic death from a fatal stroke.
However, Joe Blake still fails to answer this burning question for us sentimental Millennials.
How could this outcome have changed the High Castle Universe? When examining the possible falling dominoes in its timeline, the critical differences are the full peace with the British Empire and France that did not exist in our reality. As well as the potential for Japanese intervention in the Soviet Far East.
A Possible Major Turning Point for How the Axis Won WW2 in The Man in the High Castle Universe – A Different “Second Front”
As a result of the cessation of hostilities in the West, the so-called Western Allied “second front” which culminated in the D-Day assault never occurred. Instead, the burden of a second front became the Kremlin’s concern against Japan in the Far East.
Hitler, like many of his countrymen, were of the firm belief that Germany lost the First World War because they fought on two fronts.
This belief is clearly spelled out in Mein Kampf, and was a scenario given deep consideration by Hitler before issuing the order to invade the USSR in June 1941.
It does however seem likely in the High Castle universe that the war on two fronts dilemma would have been the struggle of the Soviet Union’s alone; with an Imperial Japanese invasion of the Soviet Far East by the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo.
Japan Shares the Spoils: The Northern Strategy
A successful German invasion of the Western Soviet Union would have been a critical turning point for Imperial Japan.
Japan was an Axis ally to Nazi Germany via the so-called Tripartite Pact, who had considerable interest in controlling the Soviet Far East.
The Soviet region of Siberia contains many highly desirable natural resources for an expanding imperial power like Japan: materials including gold, uranium, iron ore, timber, and most critically its bounty of energy deposits for the oil starved Japanese.
Yet historically Japan was extremely hesitant regarding the prospect of opening a second front against the USSR.
With over a million Imperial Army troops fighting the Chinese United Front, de facto oriented around the Chinese Nationalist leader Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek since 1937, Japan had its hands tied trying to conquer and subdue the vast Chinese mainland.
Moreover, after several fruitless border skirmishes against the Red Army prior to war with the Western Allies – most notably at Khalkhin Gol in 1939 – the Japanese were very gun shy to invade the Soviet Far East from Manchukuo (modern day PRC Manchuria). So much so in fact, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in April 1941 to forestall such a clash.
Due to the work of now famous Soviet spy Richard Sorge working in Germany’s Tokyo embassy, as well as other critical code breaking sources, it was revealed that Japan would have attacked only when it believed the USSR was on the verge of collapse, which historically never occurred.
Had such events came to fruition, Japan would have bolstered their military capability significantly with access to the aforementioned Siberian resources.
Such a conquest would have certainly changed Japan’s historical decision to conquer the “southern resources area,” plunging their empire into war with the US and Britain in 1941 – at least for a time.
As these dominoes fall, each piece paints a disturbingly realistic image of how The Man in the High Castle universe might have coalesced.
With the Western Allies and Soviet Union under a jackboot, and Imperial Japan sharing the spoils – the US would have truly realized isolation. Thus creating a scenario where the Axis powers controlled far more resources than they did historically; presenting a unique position to focus their ambitions on a surrounded North America.
The United States Minus Franklin D. Roosevelt & Its Role in How the Axis won WW2
FDR was a critical figure that thwarted the Axis winning WW2
One clear cut explanation for the differences between the High Castle universe and the one we know today is the fate of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In both the original novel and Amazon series, it is made clear that FDR was assassinated in 1933. This tragedy occurred during the first year of FDR’s first administration by Italian anarchist Giuseppe Zangara.
FDR’s absence would have created horrific implications to the High Castle timeline, both in how and when the war was fought – as well as managing the nightmarish Great Depression.
The Great Depression & Preparation for Global War
In this fictional scenario, one must factor in both how the American President managed the Great Depression historically, as well as FDR’s personal belief that Nazi Germany posed an imminent exstitential threat to US interests.
FDR’s revelation about the dangers of the Third Reich occurred years prior to most of the American public, countless contemporary politicians, and the stalwart isolationist lobby in the 1930’s and early 1940’s.
In the High Castle Universe, it appears clear that FDR’s Vice Presidential successor John “Cactus Jack” Garner was not up to the task.
As man who once said the job of Vice President wasn’t worth a warm bucket of piss, do you think he was up to the job?
It is reasonable to extrapolate that the isolationism common in the 30’s and early 40’s in America was prolonged and deeper set in the High Castle timeline. So much so that by the time the US did become involved, isolationist influence left the country extremely ill prepared to fight, nay lost, against their seasoned and emboldened Axis foes.
Yet whatever the lack of assertive foreign policy by the US towards Germany and Japan, much of the country’s eventual fate would be rooted in how the US managed it’s Great Depression experience.
American Life in the 1930’s – Managing the Great Depression
FDR’s management of the Great Depression help fortify American industry, and as well as beginning to put many people back to work. As a result, the country was better set for the incremental wartime mobilization required when war eventually came to America.
New Deal creations, for example, like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provided electricity to much of the American southeast. TVA, as well as its other New Deal departmental contemporaries, constructed vital national infrastructure to a wide swath of the US without which, wartime mobilization would have been clearly more difficult. In addition to creating the jobs necessary to complete the task.
Perhaps more critical is how the New Deal influenced the attitudes of many Americans regarding their democracy’s response to the crisis.
American Attitudes toward Democracy in a Harder Depression in The Man in the High Castle Universe
FDR did not solve the Great Depression, the Second World War did. However programs that spawned from the New Deal did help soothe ailing Americans at a loss for work. Lest one forget, unemployment figures at the height of the Depression were near 33%.
There was also a national psychological factor to the New Deal, in its providing a necessary comfort and confidence for Americans, generating faith by how their nations government was churning 24/7 to improve the economic quagmire.
When you consider that European Facism, specifically Nazi Germany, rose to power partially as a desperate response by people groping for any solution to their woes – FDR’s actions take on greater substance.
The Great Depression was crippling for Germany. Germans experienced mind boggling inflation and unemployment. Between crushing reparations payments for the First World War, and a complete economic derailment – it was a historic recipe for disaster.
Moreover, the democratic government of Weimar Germany was inept and ineffective; thus causing many Germans to lose faith in democracy, or its capability to adequately address the needs of the nation. The Weimar Republic’s failure provided an opening for the belief that a single strong leader was necessary to handle Germany’s future. This was the opening that propelled Hitler’s eventual meteoric rise to power.
If such an outcome occurred in a western nation as advanced as Germany, American Exceptionalism was no exception, nor less vulnerable.
There is no doubt that had FDR not been able to implement the New Deal and ease some American pain, similar attitudes may have had far more widespread support in the United States. Attitudes leading perhaps to the American people arriving at similar conclusions to those in Europe.
When considering how the Axis won WW2 in The Man in the High Castle universe, American feelings towards its government would have been instrumental to Axis success. In so far as Americans developing a more tolerant attitude toward the eventual Axis occupation of the United States.
(Article Continues Below...)
Read More
-
Histories Great “What If’s?: YouTube’s AlternateHistoryHub
-
Amazon Releases “The Man in the High Castle” Season 3 Release Date; New Trailer at SDCC 2018
-
D-Day in Perspective: What if the Invasion of Normandy Failed?
A Woefully Unprepared US Military
Massive American industrial production in WW2
With a missing FDR, chances are it would have led to greater militarily ill preparedness. Due to the subtle and gradual political machinations by FDR in 1939, the US managed to quietly begin its necessary preparation for the looming war.
There are a number of measures that may not have come to pass in FDR’s absence. Undoubtedly one such example is lapsing on legislation such as the Two-Ocean Navy Act in 1940, designed to increase the size of US Naval forces by 75%. This act of Congress ensured that, by its completion, the US would be the foremost maritime power in the world, surpassing even the Royal Navy.
Just as important was providing the British Empire material support through the Destroyers for Bases Agreement in 1940, revising the Neutrality Acts of the 1930’s, and ultimately the cornerstone Lend-Lease Act.
Lend-Lease is the all important legislation that extended indefinite credit to supply the UK, and eventually the Soviet Union in their fight against Nazi Germany and Japan. United States Lend-Lease historically was an indespensible factor toward Allied victory. It’s potential absence in the High Castle universe may have proven vital to how the Axis won WW2 in its story.
The Historic Realities of Lacking US Military Preparedness Prior to Pearl Harbor
Prior to full military mobilization in 1941-42, the US possessed a minuscule Army of little more than 100,000 members in 1939. The entirety of which was outfitted with antiquated equipment of First World War vintage.
Additionally, in light of the defeat of France in June 1940, Congress passed the Selective Service Act – the first US peacetime draft in the nation’s history – in September 1940. Selective Service initially requiring a service time of 12 months for qualifying draftees, later underwent expanding its service requirement to 30 months in uniform.
Selective Service was successfull in authorizing the expansion of the US armed forces to 1.4 million. However, that figure was but a small fraction compared to the 14 million Americans in uniform by 1945, necessary to fight and win a global conflict on multiple fronts.
Furthermore in 1939, the US was several years away from creating the vaunted United States Army Airforce (USAAF) that helped bring Nazi Germany and Japan to their knees. Allied air power was instrumental in the defeating the Axis, only reaching its zenith through American industrial power. In its absence, it would have added greatly to how the Axis won WW2 in the High Castle universe.
Potential US Consequences for Lacking Strategic Vision
Any absence of foresight by US leadership, thus resulting in loss of exigency for even minor war preparation measures would leave the US extremely vulnerable to Axis aggression longterm. Even despite the traditional oceanic barriers protecting North America from external aggressors.
Without Roosevelt at the helm, it is difficult to envisage another American President taking the required steps to prepare the US for war, having the political skills to do so, or recognizing the need to strongly bolster their invaluable Allies by producing war materials in that titanic struggle.
One must conclude that in the High Castle Universe, in a timeline where the Axis was successful in invading both the eastern and western seaboard of North America, none of these steps were adequately taken.
In the High Castle timeline, the atomic bombing of Washington D.C. on 11 December, 1945 lead to the collapse of the US Government, and complete victory in the summer of 1947. In short, “Goodnight Vienna.”
The Man in the High Castle Universe and the Nightmare of How the Axis won WW2
By any fair measure, the idea of how the Axis won WW2 in The Man in the High Castle universe is a nightmare. The Man in the High Castle as a celebrated piece of alternate history and science fiction is both entertaining, and a cautionary tale.
Today many think the Allies winning the Second World War was a fait accompli, however it was not. Though the entire High Castle universe is based on a series of major historical counter-factuals, only a small number of events occurring differently may have lead to an entirely disastrous outcome. Thus lending greatly to how the Axis won WW2 in fiction.
The Man in the High Castle universe and other similar fictions helps reaffirm the appreciation for the accomplishments of our near ancestors effort for prosecuting the war. As well as their tremendous sacrifice required to prevent such a devastating world order.
Do you have a question about The Man in the High Castle, or WW2 in general? E-mail 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