In the Presence of Mine Enemies

Infobox Book
name = In the Presence of Mine Enemies
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Harry Turtledove
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Alternate history
publisher = New American Library
pub_date = November 4, 2003
english_pub_date =
media_type = Print (hardcover and paperback)
pages = 464 pages
isbn = 0451529022
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"In the Presence of Mine Enemies" (2003), by Harry Turtledove is an alternate history novel expanded from the eponymous short story. [cite web |url=http://www.uchronia.net/bib.cgi/label.html?id=turtinthep |title= Turtledove, Harry. "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" |accessdate=2008-09-05 |work= |publisher=Uchronia |date= ]

Plot introduction

The novel depicts a world where the U.S. remained isolationist and did not participate in the Second World War, thus allowing victory to the Axis Powers who divided the world among themselves. Still, some years after WWII, the Third World War occurred, featuring nuclear weapons used against the U.S.

Set in 2010, the novel focuses on Heinrich Gimpel and a small group of Jews who survived the Holocaust by passing for Gentile. The events occur against a backdrop like the Soviet Union's last days, with characters based upon Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and others.Fact|date=September 2008

Plot summary

Wehrmacht officer Heinrich Gimpel astonishes his 10-year-old daughter, Alicia, with a secret that's been hidden from her all her life: the family's Jewish. He explains that the Gimpels, their friends Walther and Esther Stutzman, and their extended families all belong to those remnants of Jews who now survive by hiding in plain sight within the very society that wants them dead. Now old enough, by family tradition, to be trusted with this life-or-death deception, Alicia is obliged to hide the truth from her friends, her classmates and even her younger sisters, even as she's forced to regard her school's racist curriculum from a new perspective that leaves her sick and angry over all the anti-Semitic propaganda she's always learned and parroted without question.

Meanwhile, Heinrich finds himself caught in the marital strife between his co-worker, Willi Dorsch, and his wife, Erika. Embittered by her husband's infidelity, Erika wants a retaliatory affair with Heinrich. He resists which leads to Erika accusing him to be Jewish and Heinrich being arrested by the SS. Only after Erika realizes that her accusation caused Heinrich's children to be taken also she confesses that she lied, unaware the entire time that Heinrich and his daughters really are Jews.

Esther Stutzman, who works as a receptionist in a doctor's office, also sees the effects of Nazi policies up close when her friends Richard and Maria Klein, closeted Jews like herself, bring their ailing eight-month-old baby, Paul, in for a checkup. The diagnosis of Tay-Sachs disease, a disease known to be prevalent among Jews. The subsequent investigation into his family background almost spelled doom for his parents and any Jews whose names they might be forced to reveal under torture. Luckily, Walther Stutzman is able to hack into the Reich's computer network and change the Klein's family line enough to break off suspision.

All of this happens in the background of the event happening after the death of the current Fuhrer, Kurt Haldweim. He is replaced by the reform-minded Heinz Buckliger who relaxes the oppressive laws of the Reich. He addresses the Nazi party leaders at Nuremberg. The speech's text is secret, but, per rumours, the new Führer denounced his predecessors, saying that the Reich committed crimes in the past. Reactionary opposition rallies to the SS, while the populist Gauleiter of Berlin, Rolf Stolle, champions accelerated reform.

Things come to a head with the announcement of (relatively) free elections — candidates need not be Nazi Party members, but they "must" be Aryan. Led by Reichsführer-SS Lothar Prützmann, the SS effect a conservative "coup d'etat" — imprisoning the Führer, and installing former High Commissioner of Ostland Affairs, Odilo Globocnik, as the new Führer — however a "people power" manifestation led by Rolf Stolle foils them; in the event, the Wehrmacht support Stolle. The "coup d'etat" is defeated, using the anti-Semitic assertion that the coup's leader, Reichsführer-SS Prützmann, is a Jew (info supplied by Walther changing his family's history in the computer network). In the aftermath, he kills himself and Globocnick is lynched.

Viewpoint characters

*Heinrich Gimpel, is an officer serving at the Wehrmacht HQ in Berlin. Heinrich is careful and meticulous about keeping up his masquerade—originally even from the reader, who goes through nearly a whole chapter before finding that Gimpel is a hidden Jew and a leader of a secret Jewish community. Gimpel's specific job is to monitor the American payment of tribute to Germany, and detect the frequent attempts to avoid payment. Gimpel's is later arrested due to no more than a friend's wife denouncing him as a Jew without knowing he really was one, simply because he resisted her sexual advances. Gimpel is eventually released from custody with the help of an SS major, who casually remarks to him: "You find us in the strangest places."

*Alicia Gimpel, Heinrich's ten-year-old daughter and oldest of three sisters. At the beginning of the book, she is initiated into the secret that she, and other family and friends, are Jewish. She is stunned, but gradually comes to accept it.

*Lise Gimpel, the wife of Heinrich Gimpel and like her husband, she is also a Jew.

*Susanna Weiss, a Medieval English scholar at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. She is also one of the few surviving Jews left in the Reich.

*Esther Stutzman, a receptionist at a Berlin area pediatrician's office. She and her husband Walther are Jews. She is a tuckerization of the well-known science-fiction/fantasy author Esther Friesner.

*Walther Stutzman, a computer programmer at Zeiss. He has unauthorized access into many of the "Reich's" databases due to codes his father created, his father being involved with transferral of paper records to computer records. He has been able to assign false Aryan pedigrees to Jewish individuals, to enable them to avoid detection by the Reich.

etting

World politics and geography

Political alignment

The Führer of the Greater German Reich is the world's most powerful political leader. Besides the Reich, itself, the "Greater Germanic Empire" includes occupied, but not annexed, countries and allied countries. The occupied countries have their own governments — but limited sovereignty; the Nazis interfere in their internal affairs, especially about applying racist ideology. The allies, though technically independent are subject to the Nazi rule; most represent the local varieties of racist, fascist, and radical nationalist forces.

Italy's empire is around the Mediterranean Sea, including the parts of Africa granted by the Reich. The Nazis compel the Italians to large-scale massacres of Arabs in their portion of the Middle East. The nation is controlled by King Umberto and the Duce of the Italian Empire.

Although less powerful than Germany, Japan is a nuclear power keeping the Reich at bay with the implicit threat of mutually assured destruction. Moreover, Japan has its own subordinate rulers, of whom only the Emperor of Manchukuo is mentioned; through the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Despite having "an ocean of slave labor" at its disposal, Japan concentrates upon developing high technologies. Despite the Germano–Nipponese alliance, the Nazis consider the Japanese racially inferior and lacking in creativity, pointing to Japan's so-called decrease in technological advances as proof of this.

The fate of the U.S.A.

In the 1970s, Germany and the Axis powers defeated the U.S. in the Third World War with the nuclear bombs they developed first. The key American cities of Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia and others were destroyed, and their environs rendered uninhabitable. Omaha is the new US capital. Upon conquering the U.S., the Einsatzkommandos and the nativist American racists systematically killed the country's Jewish and Black populations.

The U.S. pays annual tribute — an important income for Germany's economy — despite the American economy's hyperinflation and the Dollar's disappearance as a world currency; whenever possible, the U.S. evades paying the tribute.

Fate of other occupied nations

The Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians are killed because they are "Untermenschen", like-wise, the Arabs for being as "Semitic as Jews". Moreover, the Reich and the Italian Empire effect the genocide of the African Negro populations, and enslave the survivors. Any Jews found are immediately killed. While "the surviving Russians were pushed far east of the Urals", there is much guerrilla fighting, requiring forts to protect the German settlers.

The Nazis treat the Czechs, Croats, and Bulgarians, relatively well, despite being Slavs, because the Croats lend themselves to savagely persecuting the Serbs via severe racial discrimination, suppressed rebellions, and dissidents enslaved or put to death. Iranians and Indians — classified as "Aryan" — are not persecuted; some are invited to study at German universities.

Technology

The level of technology in the novel is much the same as in the actual 21st century. The Wehrmacht makes use of jet aircraft, panzers, submarines, APCs, assault rifles and a variety of naval warships. The Ministry of Air and Space, is mentioned as having planted a permanent outpost on the Moon, carries out a manned landing on Mars, and may be planning a manned mission to the Jovian moons. Orbital weather platforms are also mentioned in the book.

Civilian technology has also advanced in a similar way to its military counterpart in the 21st century. Jet airliners, televisions (called televisors), computers, modern cars, and microwaves are used throughout the Reich. The German population enjoys very high living standards at the expense of non-Germans throughout the Reich and occupied nations.

The British Broadcasting Corporation is also mentioned throughout the novel with the Reich's counterpart being the RRG. A newscaster named Horst Witzleben appears several times in the novel, his "Seven O'clock News" being highly influential.

The Reich Genealogical Office also has online genealogical records, which can define life and death to persons suspected of being Jewish. Historically, the Nazis of our history already made use of the pre-computer punch-cards developed by IBM in order to mark out the Jews and eventually arrest them and send them to extermination camps. [ [http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/b/black-edwin/ibm-and-the-holocaust.html Review of "IBM and the Holocaust"] ]

ociety

The society of the German Reich is a culturally dominant people because of their victories in the Second and the Third world wars; German companies and organizations dominate the economies of allied and occupied nations; Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are thriving under fascism; car design changes are noted, the water-cooled engine in front and the boot (trunk) at the rear; moreover, Agfa-Gevaert has a key role in encouraging Germans to migrate to the Ostland territories; and Lufthansa covers the air.

Economy

The Reichsmark is the dominant world currency, and it is legal tender in the Greater German Reich, though most of the Reich's member states, territories, and allies — including the Empire of Japan, Latin America, Britain, and America — have national currencies. The Reich dictates favorable exchange rates, so the Reichsmark is readily accepted (and, apparently, welcome) even where it is not legal tender. Britain remains using its pre-decimal pound/shilling/pence currency, though the Crown coin is struck in cheap aluminum, not silver, as before World War II.

Education

School is the tool with which the German Reich indoctrinates and controls the citizenry, starting in their youth. Corporal punishment is practiced in schools; it punishes actions such as disrespecting a superior, not doing one's school work, and for not knowing the correct answers to teachers' questions in the classroom. The school year occupies most of the calendar year, with the only major holidays being the end-of-the-year, two-week holiday between Christmas and the New Year, and the week-long break after Easter Sunday. The remainder of the year is school work, though one-day holidays occur infrequently.

The Reich education system is only for Germany; allied states and occupied territories control their own education systems. In the U.S., American children have long summer holidays from school, a fact German teachers emphasize as one of the reasons the German Reich defeated America.

German academics have key roles in the processes of racial discrimination and genocide. The German Institute for Racial Studies, part of Friedrich Wilhelm University, is charged with defining which peoples and ethnic groups of the "Germanic Empire" are subhuman and so marked for genocide or slavery. At its side, as the smiling face of the Reich, is the German Institute for Foreigners (founded 1922), charged with instructing those foreigners who fortunately were classed as "Aryans" — such as Iranians and Indians — in the German language and culture.

Academic life is male-dominated. Although it is not impossible for a woman to have an academic career, few do, and such a woman lecturer faces great difficulties and must engage in daily, petty struggles in order to gain privileges that are granted to men. Under Reich sexism, an assertive woman might be accused that she is "not a proper National Socialist woman"; however, such attitudes are regarded as old-fashioned, and are challenged by the younger people.

ports

In the Reich, sports are sole province of the Aryans, and are controlled by the German Federation of Sport — which favors German sportsmen over sportsmen from other states. It has power to reserve the right to withdraw from competition with foreign teams; and to withhold the rights of foreign teams to tour the Reich when political relations sour. An example is boycotting Italian sports teams after a riot at a football match in Milan between home team fans and the visiting Leipzig team fans. Deprivation of the right to tour the Reich, and of having Reich teams visit, is financially hurtful. Germany won a recent World Cup, but now is challenged by a powerful, multi-racial Brazilian team comprising Negroes and Native Americans, and others.

urviving Jews

Although the Jews are considered exterminated as of the year 2010 the anti-Semitic stereotypes remain strong in popular culture and official propaganda, and they are an important part of the education imparted at school. The books of anti-Semitic author Julius Streicher — "Trust No Fox in the Green Meadow", "No Jew on His Oath", and "The Poison Mushroom" — are universal reading for German children — the Jews feel obliged to buy them for their children; doing otherwise might arouse suspicion. The Hitler Jugend and Bund Deutscher Mädel are compulsory for children in the German Reich; the Nazi gendre roles having changed little since their foundation. At story's end, the Hitler Jugend changes, towards preparing responsible, adult citizens, rather than army conscripts.

Jews are and are not of the society surrounding them. They must constantly play a role, parroting the prevailing anti-Semitic clichés. They keep as much of their Jewish identity as can be imparted in secret meetings among themselves, with purely oral lore, though some written Hebrew is taught. With the exception of the Bible — which can be kept openly as Christianity, while not encouraged by the Reich, is not forbidden — they dare not have possess books on Judaism, though the books exist.

All of the viewpoint characters were born under the Nazis, and maintaining the masquerade is second nature. The greatest danger is when a child is told of his or her true identity, usually at age of ten — old enough to keep the secret. Children often are shocked, since, like all German children, they grew up exposed to constant anti-Semitism from teachers and children's books. The adults soften the shock by teaching the children to feel privileged to belong to a such a secret society.

It is mentioned that the hidden Jews regard it as too dangerous to gather on the Major Holidays and fasts of Judaism, such as Passover and Yom Kippur, and hold their secret gatherings on Minor Holidays such as Purim. That might have the effect that for future Jews the Minor Holidays would become in practice the major ones.

Other minorities

German industry uses Slavic or Arab slave laborers for "dirty" or dangerous work. In one passage, an industrial accident in the Ruhr is reported on TV as having caused the deaths of "Twelve Aryans and an unknown number of Untermenschen". The episode seems to be borrowed from Mark Twain's description of the Old South in Huckleberry Finn, a boiler explosion in a Mississippi River boat is (falsely) reported by Huck, and when an elderly lady asks if anyone was hurt, Huck replies "No, m'm. A nigger was killed."

Homosexuals are actively persecuted. Unlike Jews, Gypsies, and other "inferior races" (which are thought to have been wiped out), homosexuals continue to arise, and are hunted by the security police—unless they have political connections which protect them.

Locales

Berlin

Much of the story occurs in Berlin, the Reich capital replete with the monumental architecture of Albert Speer. An important example is the Great Hall that can house more than 100,000 people; in it was held the funeral of deceased Führer Kurt Haldweim. The Hall has a dome 200 metres high and 250 metres in diametre, it is crowned with a massive, gilded German eagle holding a swastika.

Nearby is the Führer's Palace (the official residence for the Führer) that is guarded by soldiers from the Grossdeutschland Division, who are barracked near the Palace. Aside from security, they are a ceremonial, dress corps armed with (antique) "Gewehr 98" rifles; their arsenal includes assault rifles and tanks; next is the Adolf Hitler Platz, a grand public square for rallies and such.

The Soldier's Hall commemorates the German Reich's military might, exhibiting the radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell (displayed behind lead glass), gliders used to invade Britain, the first Panzer IV to enter the Kremlin, and the railroad carriage in which Imperial Germany surrendered to the Allies in 1918, at Compiègne, France, and in which France surrendered to Nazi Germany in 1940.

The Arch of Triumph is 170 metres wide and 1,700 metres deep — despite being modelled from the "smaller" Arc de Triomphe in Paris; much of that city district's automobile traffic transits through this arch. Because Berlin is populous, public transport — rapid transit trains (U-bahn) and commuter railroads are well developed; such a rail station is the "South Station", near government offices. Per Speer's plans, this was to anchor the south end of the main boulevard with the most monumental structures. Captured enemy weapons and battle wreckage (British fighter plane; Soviet tank; U.S. submarine conning tower), are displayed outside the station.

Berlin also is headquarters to these key government ministries for Air and Space, Justice, Interior, Transport, Food, Economics, Colonial, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and the Führer's Office.

The Kurfürstendamm commercial district glitters with neon signs and reflected sun light, yet these citizens of Berlin use the street's full name in their daily lives, not the abbreviated slang of the native. Nazi Berlin is a culturally-vibrant city offering resident and visitor a wildly successful musical about Churchill and Stalin and cosmopolitan cuisines — however — under the "Reinheitsgebot", the nation's medieval beer-purity law, Japanese beer is illegal for importation to the Reich; American fast food is unavailable, because of the American economic collapse on its World War III defeat.

Culturally, the toy store Ulbright offers the children of the Reich pretty "Vicki" dolls and the "Landser Sepp" action figures (a boy's doll). Vicki dolls are made in the U.S.A. with slave labour, and come in varieties, yet all dolls look perfectly Aryan — in abiding Reich policy.

London

Parts of the story also take place in London, the capital of Britain. In this timeline, the British people are impoverished due to the German occupation; William Shakespeare and his works are more widely known and published in Germany than in Shakespeare's homeland, partly due to Britain's economic collapse. During the Second World War, much of London was destroyed by dive bombers and panzers as well as during the last-ditch resistance by Churchill and his supporters. Key British buildings including the Parliament building, Big Ben and St. Paul's Cathedral have been completely destroyed, with their only remaining legacy being photographs. Some areas of the city have been in ruins for over seventy years, due to harsh reparations imposed on the British by the Germans and partisan uprisings that would only be completely crushed by 1970. German city planners often visit Britain to see how their colleagues deal with building from the clean slate that they themselves can never have.

The Crown is a hotel that serves as the meeting place of the British Union of Fascists; as its name implies, the hotel is dominated by an enormous crown. The BUF members have a reputation of being violent thugs; a fight involving members of the party takes place outside and within the hotel. A second hotel, the Silver Eagle, is the location of the Medieval English Association conference; it bears a glass and steel eagle on its top. Both hotels are modern, glass-fronted structures.

Literary criticism and significance

Gavriel Rosenfeld in his novel, "The World Hitler Never Made", notes that unlike other alternate histories that deal with a Nazi victory, "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" humanizes the Nazis. Rosenfeld stated this would have been impossible in earlier years where the trend was to show the Nazis in alternate histories as the "incarnation of evil." [cite book |title=The World Hitler Never Made |last=Rosenfeld |first=Gavriel |authorlink=Gavriel Rosenfeld |coauthors= |year=2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location= |isbn=0521847060 |page=148 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=ZKNdxlzG6okC&pg=PA158&vq=Turtledove&dq=%22Clash+of+Eagles%22&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1&sig=ACfU3U2AGVIVM5IdN1GAH5M1dxp-1ljckQ#PPA148,M1] Rosenfeld, however, noted that despite Turtledove's reputation as an acclaimed and skilled writer in alternate history, he received a lot of criticism for the novel making Rosenfeld assume that most American audiences do not wish to humanize the Nazis. [Id. 158.]

Adam-Troy Castro, however, gave a good review of the novel. Though he found that the hidden Jewish characters of the novel weathered their secret life too well and compared others who live secret lives in our society (for examples homosexuals) who sometimes have to deal with with incidents of self-loathing, alcoholism, drug abuse and even suicide. In the end Castro was thrilled to see at the end of the novel the main characters standing tall against an oppressive government. cite web |url=http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue351/books.html |title=On the Shelf:In the Presence of Mine Enemies |accessdate=2008-09-05 |work=Book Review |publisher=SciFi.com |date=2006]

ee also

*"Fatherland"
*"The Man in the High Castle"
*"1945"
*"SS-GB"
*"The Sound of His Horn"

References

External links

* [http://turtledove.wikia.com/wiki/In_the_Presence_of_Mine_Enemies_(novel) "In the Presence of Mine Enemies" at the Turtledove Wiki]