Reading my first alternate history novel was quite an experience. We are taught history cannot be changed, but rarely do we get to digest what could have happened if events turned out differently. Philip Dick does a superb job in “The Man in the High Castle”, with the main storyline of Germany and Japan occupying what would be the United States in the 1960’s, if the Allied forces did not win World War II. This opens up the eyes of the readers and allows new ideas to be explored. Although difficult to comprehend fact and fiction in an alternate history novel, you can use prior knowledge to help decipher the facts.
What I found to be most understood and most plausible is the demeanor and ideology of the Nazi’s during this time. Compared to the Japanese, the Nazi’s had a greater stronghold on their East Coast territories and continued to be extreme towards the Jews and other non-white people. An example of this crude and continued ideology is described a bit by Juliana “They’ll call you a Jew analyst, do you want to wind up in an oven?” (Dick, 93) We can relate this back to World War II by the previous knowledge of concentration camps in Germany. There were many reasons the German’s felt about the Jews and other minorities as they did, but it is hard for the average thinker to understand why these heinous acts were carried out.
In the article by Wolf regarding language barriers from Germans and Jews in World War II, specifically concentration camps, she goes onto describe the importance of being able to understand German as a non-native speaker and the consequences if you did not comprehend the officers, “I would claim that language and, as such, also the mediation of language between the camps’ multiple nationalities decisively shaped the most determining, existential social constants in the camp: on the one hand, these constants included domination and subordination, labor and exploitation, privilege and discrimination, satiety and hunger, corruption and denunciation, and theft and bodily harm; on the other, mutual help, solidarity, subversion, and resistance.” (Wolf, 7) This instilled fear and continued to do so throughout Dick’s novel and helps us to understand why he continued the Nazi ideologies throughout his comprehension of alternate history.
Dick, Philip K. The Man in the High Castle. Berkley, 1974.
Wolf, Michaela. “German Speakers, Step Forward!: Surviving through Interpreting in Nazi Concentration Camps.” Translation and Interpreting Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, 2013, pp. 1–22, https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.8.1.01wol.