Fatherland
Tags: alternate history

Plot synopsis:
In the prologue, the failure of the D-Day invasion causes the United States to withdraw from the war in Europe and Dwight D. Eisenhower to retire in disgrace. The US continues the Pacific War against Japan and wins by using atomic bombs. In Europe, Germany invades the United Kingdom, resulting in King George VI and the rest of the Royal family fleeing to Canada in exile with Edward VIII regaining the throne while Wallis Simpson becomes queen. Winston Churchill also goes into exile in Canada and lives there until his death in 1953. Germany corrals the rest of Europe into the Greater German Reich, known as "Germania" for short. German society is largely clean and orderly - at least on the surface - with the SS reorganized into a peacetime police force.
Germania is embroiled in an endless guerrilla war with the USSR, still led by the 85 year-old Joseph Stalin, which lasts well into the 1960s. The 1960 election of US President Joseph Kennedy gives the Nazi leadership a chance to secure a better understanding with the U.S. In 1964, as Adolf Hitler's 75th birthday on 20 April approaches and President Kennedy heads to Germania for a summit meeting, the nation opens its borders to U.S. media.
A body is found floating in a lake near Berlin. SS Major Xavier March (Rutger Hauer) starts investigating the body and the witness (Rupert Penry-Jones) who saw it being dumped. The dead person is revealed to be Josef Bühler, a retired Nazi Party official who managed the Jewish "resettlement" in the east during the war. However, the Gestapo takes over the case for "state security" reasons. The witness is killed in an "accident" that seems to have been arranged by the Gestapo.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Charlie Maguire (Miranda Richardson), a member of a visiting US press entourage, runs into an old man who slips her an envelope. A note on a photograph in the envelope leads her to Wilhelm Stuckart, another retired Nazi Party official, but she finds him dead at his apartment. March is assigned to the Stuckart case, but when he takes Charlie to where she found the body, the Gestapo shows up, and March is again taken off the case. Following up on the photo, Charlie and March visit Wannsee to learn the names of those in the photo, all of whom attended the Wannsee Conference, and discover they’ve all been murdered except for Franz Luther, the man who gave her the picture.
March tells Charlie to get out of Germania, as he now realizes there is a plot at the very highest levels. Luther contacts Charlie and asks her to meet him in a train, where he requests that she communicate his desire for safe passage to the US so that he can reveal what he knows about "the biggest secret of the war." SS troops corner Luther and kill him, but March rescues Charlie. March later blackmails a colleague to get Luther’s file and learns that he had a mistress, former stage actress Anna von Hagen.
Posing as a US Embassy official sent to process Luther's safe passage, Charlie visits von Hagen and gets Luther's papers. Von Hagen reveals that the Jews were not resettled, but were actually killed en masse by the Germans during the war. March is shocked at seeing the photos and documents, and agrees to join Charlie in escaping Germania with his son. However, the Gestapo has already persuaded his son to betray his father to them. When March goes to pick up his boy, Gestapo chief General Globus appears with his men. March kills one agent and flees, stopping at a nearby phone booth to call his son one more time before he dies from his wounds. As Kennedy arrives at the Great Hall, a member of the press entourage helps Charlie slip the documents to the president via the US ambassador. Kennedy looks at the materials and decides to fly back to the US immediately.
In the epilogue, it is revealed that the narrator is actually March's now-grown son. He says Charlie was eventually arrested by the Gestapo. The revelation of the mass slaughter of the Jews derailed any prospect of a strategic alliance with the US, resulting in the Nazi regime's collapse.

Review: Berlin, 1964, Nazi Germany."Fatherland" is one of Ruger Hauer's better recent movies.
It takes a look at what would have happened if Nazi Germany had survived, even if the US had never gone to war with Germany.The movie shows the grandiose architectural empire that Hitler had planned to make out of Berlin, as it would look on his 75th birthday.
The appearance of Nazi era clothes and uniforms against a sixties era eastern europe looks both plausible and surreal.The movie itself focuses on a patriotic cop (Hauer) and an american journalist who look into a series of murders that involved the "greatest secret" of the Reich."Fatherland" is a better than average drama and at the same a very disturbing look at how history could have turned out differently..
I believe that if history had turned out differently, it may very well have happened just as this movie portrayed it.
It has an interesting and engaging murder plot, as well as a good amount of suspense as the various players try to reveal the truth about Nazi war crimes and evade capture by the Gestapo.
Nazi callousness, like March's colleague about the "pure-blooded Aryan and a Pollock caught in the act", the Gestapo chief's nonchalance toward the need of evidence, and the retired actress' anti-Semitic take on America's "Jewish Problem", are well played out without overused, propaganda-style vitriol.
I made the unfortunate mistake of watching this film before reading the book.
Both of which are considered war crimes by many, allowing for a small hint of socio-political commentary.The flaws lie in the plot, which has significantly deviated from the book, in that the ending seems over-dramatic.
I will not spoil it but those of you who have read the book will possibly agree that the ending to the novel is more intense, subtle and powerful.
Rutger Hauer's performance is excellent, well acted and his style is perfectly fitting of a character like Xavier March.
Miranda Richardson plays the role of Charlie Maguire solidly, at times a little wooden and restrained.All in all, the film is a decent homage to Robert Harris' most famous, and arguably his best, novel.
Re-baptized LE CREPUSCULE DES AIGLES (TWILIGHT OF THE EAGLES) by a French cable-TV chain, it was the only watchable movie on a raining election afternoon when I watched it, after mistaking it for a WWI air combat film starring George Peppard.
To my great surprise, I learned from the introduction sequence that the Allies had been stormed back into the Channel in June 1944, then the US brought home the G.I's,Edward VIII came back with Queen Wallis, while Churchill retired to Canada, and Joe Kennedy became President of the United States, scheduled to meet Hitler in 1964, for the latter's 75th birthday.
Rutger Hauer was unusually mysterious as a quiet SS man, the setting (made in the Baranov studios of Prague, a bargain for advantageous filming of mid-century action) was excellent, with an interesting suggestion of the Albert Speer monumental project.
That means many differences from what really happened:All Europe is one single country, Germania (I think)Germania is still at war with the Soviet UnionNo one really knows about the extermination of the Jews.
Disappointing film adaptation of great book.
Of course changes have to be made to any story to adapt it to the film-medium, but in Fatherland, as in so many other cases, incomprehensible and unnecessary changes are made to the entire plot, changing the whole feel of the story, turning an intelligent and though-provoking book into an over-simplified, mindless action-movie.
And of course they had to change the ending, we must have happy endings, mustn't we?I probably wouldn't have been so harsh in my judgement had I not read the book before I saw the film, that I admit.
But since I have read the book, I know that the film could have been so much better!
Overall, what could have been a decent film that matched the books content etc ended up looking like it had been made by three different directors.
The finely crafted Robert Harris novel gradually reveals in a literary striptease the elements of this alternate universe; the film gives up most of the interesting twists in a voice-over narrative/montage in the first three minutes!
Took all the fun out of it.The original plot is barely recognizable in the film and the reworked ending completely implausible compared to the novel's.
Lastly, the love interest between Hauer's and Richardson's characters has been omitted entirely, which was a vital driving force in the novel's plot.The upside of the film, if it has one, has already been mentioned in the other review posted here: the juxtaposition of 1960's Europe (the film was shot in Prague, which afforded plenty of great locations) with a Nazi regime (a large poster and statue of an aging Hitler).
Truly disorienting and disturbing.I've not read Harris' comments on the film anywhere, but I'm not sure he's entirely happy with the treatment his great novel got.
I am so glad, that I have read the book first (total master piece, even better than Da Vinci's code, which integrated quite a lot of elements from Fatherland), cause the movie was a total disaster.
My advice to those who want to know the story is to read the book before seeing the movie cause there is a big possibility you will lose all your interest in the story if you start with that terrible movie.
And now, can anybody answer me, why Americans always destroy all the good stories, when they turn them into movies?.
He shows very good how his character changed his minds and his kind of thinking during the film.Also the end of this film is very dramatic and a little bit surprising.
do it!BtW: The boy who played the role of Rutger Hauer characters son did a great job too..
I never like when a film differentiates from the book.
I chose to eventually give this "movie" a 4/10 as, and although it did touch upon some very interesting themes and thought the acting was very good, I have to be honest and say that the film generally felt that it needed a little more money thrown into it!
In my view, the film failed to ultimately grasp the everyday person/people feel of this new Germany, or adapt and show the viewer the social aspects of 1964 Post-War Germany.
It's almost as if the film maker thought that Germany would not have dramatically changed twenty years after the war, where in fact I am certain that Germany would have done its utmost to not have any memories or indicators of its ultra-nationalistic past.
It's central theme of pushing along this dark image and assuming that all its people were deeply brain-washed with utlra nationalism, failed to identify the true intelligence of what the Germans would have gained in this golden opportunity (after winning such a war!).In conclusion, by 1964, I am sure Germany would have moved things along much differently to what this film shows, more intelligently than what we may have thought!
The plot follows detective Xavier March (Rutger Hauer) investigating the suspicious death of a high-ranking Nazi.March meets with Charlie Maguire (Miranda Richardson) a visiting female US journalist who is mixed up with another murder and is determined to investigate the case and teams up with March.
It looks like the victims were high ranking Nazi officials who decades ago were involved in planning the Holocaust.Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson are good in the lead roles.
There is a roll call of British character actors in this HBO film from Michael Kitchen, Peter Vaughan, John Shrapnel and Jean Marsh making a chilling cameo.Some of the actors are though are wasted in their brief roles.The film was shot in Prague and visual effects were used to make it look like a triumphant Berlin.
The adaptation gets rid of some of the nuances and side plots of the Harris novel such as a Nazi era European Union.It becomes a staid thriller where someone wishes to keep the secrets of the past to remain hidden.In doing so what made the book standout has gone.
The novel is great and this film is also, but in different way.The visual effects are great as well as the acting.
The Third Reich painted in the film is credible, and very nice attention is paid to the details.I'd suggest watching this film first and then reading the Robert Harris' novel.
It's a life-changing experience for you even if you are a extreme right believer or a person interested in the history.The movie alone 9/10, compared to the novel 6/10..
I didn't know it had been made and as somebody says the Hollywood suits should be ashamed of themselves for turning down the opportunity to do it justice.Normally I hate films that introduce characters that are not in the original books but the Jean Marsh role as the embittered actress who failed to make it in Hollywood is superb.
The names you hear were real people.The crowd scenes ARE too small but Rutger Hauer is believable as the decent German looking for the truth and though Miranda Richardson comes across as a bit neurotic (as usual) she is plausible.Lets start a campaign for a big budget version..
Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson were very good in the lead roles but at the same time I don't think that they had great chemistry which is a letdown.
I always say "I never read books, it ruins the film" and never has it been more true than here.
Fatherland by Robert Harris is truly one of the best novels ever written and I did find myself thinking "this could be a great film one day" many times while reading it.
I was therefore delighted to see it made but disappointed with the result.Most of the actors work for me - this is a film that should be cast with Europeans - especially Rutger Hauer (ever growing in stature as an older statesman) as Xavier March.
Lets hope for a re-make.It must also be said that one of the most disappointing facts about the movie is how the film never really portrays the Berlin and Germany of a victorious Third Reich well enough.
The monumental architecture that is so well described in Harris's book (taken from the historical facts of Hitler and Speer's plans) never really gets a fair showing.
I do not usually compare books to movies because they are two different means of expression.
Movies give us the director's vision, which is usually different from ours, but may add interest to a known story.In the case of Fatherland, however, having read the novel years ago and stumbled upon the movie only a few nights ago, I was disappointed.
The novel is based on historical facts (up to 1942) and accurately researched, but still manages to get us involved with two interesting and believable main characters, Xavier March and Charlie Maguire.They live in a scary, dystopian past-future of the year 1964, with the Nazi as winners of WWII, a Cold War between Germany and the US and guerrilla between the Russians and the Germans.
March is a police office and honorary SS, investigating a suspicious suicide, Maguire is an American who wants to report on the meeting of the 75 yo Hitler with US president Joseph Kennedy.The film has a great performance by Hauer as the weary March and a totally miscast British Richardson as the American journalist Maguire.
Richardson looks like a bored middle-aged matron.Another major change in the plot is March's son.
The idea of the Nazi regime as pure evil is a lot stronger in the book and the punch of the final revelation watered down in the movie, by the fact that the audience already knows what really happened.
Also the ending feels really rushed and a bit silly.It is interesting but depressing to see what could have happened if the Nazi had won.
So when German TV showed this film (again!) and my TV Guide said "Worth watching" I thought I might as well...
The pace is gone, the ending is naff, and there's nothing worth watching again...Final mark: 4/10 Final comment: Read the book.
The film really only works on the level of style, with all the different pictures of what Hitler would've looked like in 1963 while about to meet President 'Joe' Kennedy (the father of JFK).
Please, read the book before you watch this movie!
I first read Fatherland almost 30 years ago, since which it has ranked one of my Top 10 books of all time.
When it comes to watching movies based on books I have read, I try not to compare, and remain open minded, judging each on its individual merits.
The problem here is that the book stands on its twists and turns and its gradual unveiling of the truth behind the narrative, without which, you are left with little more than an interesting premise and a barely entertaining story line.
Fatherland is a simple movie, it doesn't touch on particularly deep themes and there's not a whole lot of depth or subtlety to the plot, but therein lies the charm.Seeing Fatherland reminded me of Threads (another made-for-TV film from a decade earlier) in that they're both simple films that somehow manage to have more coherent scene structure and pacing than many films released today.Isn't it lovely when what's shown on screen makes a bit of basic sense?The overdubbed child actor and heavy handed third act does bring down the overall impression however..
The chilling premise of a victorious Nazi party is well played out thanks to a good cast, a fast-moving and intelligent story, fine photography and, for a change, music that doesn't overpower the script.Much praise to Rutger Hauer and just about the entire cast, including the youngster portraying his son, and the actor whose brief appearances as a 75-year-old Hitler seemed on the mark.The story might have been more interesting if it had taken place in, say, NYC rather than Berlin, itself (Prague actually).
In short, while the film is certainly entertaining, worth watching, and thought provoking, functional students of history can realize the implausibility of the plot's premise..
Accents like these made me realize why we are so lucky the war ended differently and how much we have to keep on fighting for the values we live up to now (tolerancy, help the weaker).Like other mentioned, the scene where the documents proving the holocaust were thrown in the American president's car was not too strong.
Apart from this scene the movie was impressive and when I have more time I will read the book..
Ruger Hauer's stars in a movie based the novel Fatherland.While I did like movie as a suspense or police movie.
The premise of the Nazi's winning WWII is not unique in the Sci-Fi world and many a bad movie or story have been made.
It's still fiction, read the novel it's better.By the way, the scene where the actor protraying A.H. waiting for the American President could have been a bit more dramatic, instead he appeared as just an old man standing in the rain.In a review on other site.
Ok, I realize that they cannot make the movie in German, but if it is placed in Berlin, it is quite striking to see a propaganda poster like: our children, our future, in English.
Big Book, Little Movie.
She's a very good actor but completely fails to convince as an American journalist who dresses like a 60-year-old whore.The plot is edited down to its bare bones and loses a lot of its impact in the process of being filleted.
Having not read the book, I can't comment on how the movie fares in comparison.
Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson play an SS Officer and an American journalist who stumble upon what would have been WWII's most dreaded secret.
This movie is so well written that it's hard to believe it didn't happen this way.
The sets showing "Germania" are very well constructed (almost surrealistic, especially the massive Nuremberg dome) as well as the big pictures of what Hitler would look like if he had lived to be 75.
Normally I'm disappointed by movies based on books.
Apart from good performances from Rutger Hauer and Miranda Richardson and the rest of the cast, even if you accept the changearound, it's still too laughable around the historical facts we DO know about.Germany has won the war (Nazi Germany - that's important!).
In actual fact America's contrast is that the world knows nothing of the concentration camps/Nazi atrocities etc, which are about to come out in the plot.
SS Chief of Police, Xavier March (Rutger Hauer) teams up with Miranda Richardson's 'Charlie MacGuire' after a lot of new facts surface and deaths occur within the Nazi idyll (Yes, idyll, another what if, as if).
Nor was the way Charlie broke the cordon, just by pushing through and getting to the President believable - okay, I know someone shot Lincoln and Reagan, but still!It was a very cheap and poor production, with about a handful of 'Germans' making up for a crowd scene of Nuremburg-like proportions.
would have been a sensation like the first top summits between US and Soviet leaders i.e. a hope for the World.So far it´s an interesting and realistic film.
SPOILER ALERT!A few users have commented on how they changed the ending of the book to make it a happy ending for the movie?
A real Hollywood-style "happy ending" would have had both Xavier and Charlie get to the American Embassy and leave Germania to live happily ever after in the United States, which the movie looked like it was leading up to.Happy ending?
i like this "how would the world look like if ..." (in any direction) and we have a good example here - what if the Germans had not lost the second world war (and the description on this site is not correct - they have not won - they just have not lost in the movie)?