Wartime Scenarios - Real and Imagined

Introduction

The Second World War is such a pivotal event in human history that affected generations have inevitably speculated about what might have happened had the momentum swung slightly another way. Variations on Hitler's defeat by the allies have become a recurrent strain in the genre of counter-factual or alternative-history fiction.

The premise of a German and Japanese triumph has inspired writers from Philip K Dick to Robert Harris, whose Fatherland (1992) consciously offers a German-American parallel to the Nazi-invaded Britain of Len Deighton's SS-GB (1978); in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America (2004), President Roosevelt loses the 1940 US election to the isolationist, pro-fascist Charles Lindbergh. Now comes CJ Sansom's provocative thriller Dominion, depicting a Britain that surrendered to Germany on 9 May 1940 – the day before Churchill, in the real world, became PM – and now serves as a satellite state of a triumphant Third Reich.

Dominion by C N Sansom
1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule: the press, radio and television are controlled; the streets patrolled by violent auxiliary police and British Jews face ever greater constraints. There are terrible rumours too about what is happening in the basement of the German Embassy at Senate House. Defiance, though, is growing. In Britain, Winston Churchill's Resistance organization is increasingly a thorn in the government's side. And in a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the world struggle for ever.

Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, secretly acting as a spy for the Resistance, is given the mission to rescue his old friend Frank and get him out of the country. Before long he, together with a disparate group of Resistance activists, will find themselves fugitives in the midst of London's Great Smog; as David's wife Sarah finds herself drawn into a world more terrifying than she ever could have imagined. And hard on their heels is Gestapo Sturmbannfuhrer Gunther Hoth, brilliant, implacable hunter of men . . .

At once a vivid, haunting reimagining of 1950s Britain, a gripping, humane spy thriller and a poignant love story, with Dominion C. J. Sansom once again asserts himself as the master of the historical novel.

Independent Review

24

C J Sansom is fascinated by the abuse of power, so it's not surprising that, hot on the heels of his splendid Shardlake series, comes a novel set in a post-war Britain dominated by Nazi ideology. Following the defeat at Dunkirk, the fascists have been in government for more than a decade, Churchill leads the Resistance, Jews are being deported and David Fitzgerald is a civil servant who has agreed to spy for – or against – his country.

There have been a number of other novels imagining this kind of alternate history – Robert Harris's Fatherland, Owen Sheers' Resistance, Len Deighton's SS-GB and, for children, Sally Gardner's Maggot Moon. All are outstanding in different ways but Sansom's Dominion is the most thoroughly imagined in all its ramifications.

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Like Harris, Sansom has woven a thriller with the tale of a man's growth into moral courage, but he has done it with the compassion and richness that many literary writers should emulate. Every detail of this nightmare Britain rings true, from the way that morris dancing is televised as a cultural expression of nationalism to the absence of the name "Lyons" in Corner Houses. Cowardice and collaboration are everywhere. "We used to think the British people would never become Fascists … but … anybody can, given the right set of circumstances," David's wife, Sarah, says. The French will love this.

When Frank Muncaster, one of David's university friends, is sent to a lunatic asylum after learning a top scientific secret, all three are in mortal danger. David has kept his half-Jewish identity secret, and the Gestapo has put Gunther, a brilliant hunter of Jews, on his trail. Even though Hitler is declining with Parkinson's disease, the British government, led by Lord Beaverbrook, Oswald Mosley and Enoch Powell, will not stand up for British people.

As in Sansom's Winter in Madrid, the clash between compassion and political conviction is dramatised. David's looks and talent make him as freakish in his way as frail, disabled Frank, and the friendship between someone who can survive institutions and someone who cannot is one of the most affecting aspects of the novel. Sarah is a less satisfactory character: despite her well-drawn grief and jealousy, you never feel that she experiences the humiliating anxiety of intelligent women who are wholly dependent on their husbands.

Naturally, the weather is awful, and obliges with a choking, oily fog as our heroes battle against hideous odds to get to safety. But both as a historical novel and a thriller, Dominion is absorbing, mordant and written with a passionate persuasiveness. Furthermore, it is confident enough of itself to be published without a swastika on the cover. Bravo

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Despite their differences, sisters Viann and Isabelle have always been close. Younger, bolder Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann is content with life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. But when the Second World War strikes, Antoine is sent off to fight and Viann finds herself isolated so Isabelle is sent by their father to help her.

As the war progresses, the sisters' relationship and strength is tested. With life changing in unbelievably horrific ways, Viann and Isabelle will find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.

Be prepared to weep when you read this book. What these women went through, what they suffered, what they saw. The brutality of it all and the unfairness of their situation – grabs you by the throat and never lets you go.

What the novel excels at is the stark portrayal of the decisions these women faced on a daily basis. Imagine having a Nazi soldier take over your home? Your children starving because of the rations, the inability to do and go where you want? The fear and the not knowing.. The Nazis do everything to break the spirit of the French people and the death camps are in full operation.

The relationship between the two sisters changes throughout the novel and the story of each one – how they came to be where they are and how they deal with their ‘ lot’ in life was fascinating and so well written. Decisions in wartime are unlike any other and these two very different personalities really gave a full and heartbreaking picture.