383:) Feric Jaggar returns from the outlands of Borgravia where his family was exiled by the treaty of Karmak with the surrounding mutant states to his ancestral land, the High Republic of Heldon, which was founded on the principles of killing mutants and keeping humanity pure. He arrives only to find its rigor slackened and corrupted by the "Universalists", pawns of the sinister Dominator country Zind, which seeks to corrupt Heldon's pure human gene pool into the mutant diversity that rules the rest of the world. Indeed, in the very first portion of Heldon that Feric enters, the customs fort where entrants are tested to see whether they are pure and free of mutation, he is outraged that mutants are being allowed into Heldon on day-passes, that the fort is under the spell of a Dominator, and that the tests are so lax that impure specimens are being granted citizenship.
775:"Indeed, in the book Hitler seems to assume that masses of men in fetishistic uniforms marching in precise displays and displaying phallic gestures and paraphernalia will have a powerful appeal to ordinary human beings. Feric Jaggar comes to power in Heldon through little more than a grotesque series of increasingly grandiose phallic displays. This is undoubtedly phallic fetishism on the part of the author, since the alternative conclusion is to accept the ridiculous notion that an entire nation would throw itself at the feet of a leader simply on the basis of mass displays of public fetishism, orgies of blatant phallic symbolism, and mass rallies enlivened with torchlight and rabid oratory. Obviously, such a mass national psychosis could never occur in the real world..." pg 249
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and determines to wipe out Zind and every last Dom before they can unleash the Fire. Soon enough, Zind begins to rally its troops from their reverse in Wolack. The final invasion of Zind is hard fought: the main Helder force, under the command of Lar
Waffing, takes the southwestern oil fields needed for resupply, while the secondary force fights a delaying action against the vast bulk of the Zind army to the north towards the Zind capital, Bora. Needless to say, the forces of Heldon prevail and the Zind army is destroyed and burned, down to the last mindless "Warrior". The central city is reduced to a cinder in a firestorm (akin to the
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about the need for human purity. Fired by his words, Feric is inspired to take control of the listening crowd and leads a mob to the same border post, there to slay the
Dominator (or "Dom") who had quietly disguised himself as a clerk to sway the immigration decisions in favor of mutants. At Bogel's invitation, he assumes leadership of the Party, which Feric later renames The Sons of the Swastika, and the two travel on to Walder—the second city of Heldon—to meet the party inner circle and begin the great task.
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Council to admit to treason and a Zind plot against Heldon. Confirming his suspicions, the
Universalist member of the Council turns out to be a Dom. Feric summarily executes him with the Great Truncheon. Jaggar coerces the Council into granting him complete executive power and then has them shot. Immediately after assuming power Jaggar puts down an imminent coup by Stopa, who has been corrupted by the fleshly pleasures of Zind.
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to be led, our righteous wars. What
Spinrad is trying to tell us is that it is happening here." Le Guin also stated that "a novel by Adolf Hitler" cannot "be well-written, complex, (or) interesting", as this "would spoil the bitter joke", but also asked why anyone should "read a book that isn't interesting", arguing that the bad prose of "Hitler's" book may have been due, in part, to the poor quality of Spinrad's own prose.
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and conquering the countries to his west, with no analogue of a stubbornly resisting
Britain; and finally utterly defeating and destroying Zind (Russia) and its capital Bora (Moscow), killing each and every one of the Universalists (Communists) and Doms (Jews). There is in this world no analogue of America, to interfere and foil Jaggar/Hitler's plans for world conquest.
651:, in which the psychopathology of Hitler's saga was spelled out by a tendentious pedant in words of one syllable. Almost everyone got the point... And yet one review appeared in a fanzine that really gave me pause. "This is a rousing adventure story and I really enjoyed it," the gist of it went. "Why did Spinrad have to spoil the fun with all this muck about Hitler?"
340:. To further hammer the point, in an early edition, actual science fiction writers wrote fictional statements of praise for "Hitler's" writing skills for Spinrad to use as blurbs on the novel's back cover. Irony abounds in Whipple's review, as he argues author Hitler is obviously wrong in assuming that not much more than midnight rallies and
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Zealand, and the United States (collectively called the
Pacific Pact) are the only major powers standing between the Greater Soviet Union and total control of the globe—yet most Americans seem unable to be roused to deal with the looming Soviet danger. Whipple wonders what the emergence of an American leader like Feric Jaggar, the hero of
394:, the Black Avengers. Jaggar, however, senses that these men may be of use to his cause and challenges their leader, Stag Stopa. The rules of the Black Avengers only allow a member to challenge the leader, and so he and Bogel are taken back to their headquarters for Feric to be initiated. Feric acquits himself mainly in the drinking of
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Months later, his scientists report that they are near to rediscovering the secrets of atomic bombs, but that Zind is making efforts to dig up relics of the
Ancients, which might salvage its own complement of nuclear weaponry. Noting the damage such weapons had done, Feric orders such research ended,
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From this event, Jaggar assumes a hereditary right to be the leader of Heldon and embarks on a violent crusade for genetic purity, drawing a massive following, staging outdoor rallies and raising an army personally loyal to him. He is elected to the
Council and stages a coup d'Ă©tat when he forces the
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wrote in a review that: "We are forced, insofar as we can continue to read the book seriously, to think, not about Adolf Hitler and his historic crimes—Hitler is simply the distancing medium—but to think about ourselves: our moral assumptions, our ideas of heroism, our desires to lead or
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Essentially, the career of the fictional Feric Jaggar is an idealized version of Hitler's real-life career — taking power in Heldon (Germany) and establishing a dictatorial rule dedicated to the ideal of "racial purity"; conquering and annexing his original homeland of
Borgravia (Austria); defeating
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The last Dom, apparently a leader and with immense mental powers, is discovered hiding in a command bunker. The Dom has anticipated military defeat and, before Feric has the pleasure of killing him, triumphantly reveals that the Doms had salvaged and rearmed one of the ancient nuclear weapons. It is
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code of conduct, while the United States vacillates against the
Greater Soviet Union's ascendancy. Due to the Greater Soviet Union threat, the United States and Japan have a close military and strategic alliance. Japanese militarist values are much admired in the United States. Japan, Australia, New
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The two essays that make up the fourth section of the book, "Psychopolitics and Science Fiction", address an issue that has long concerned Spinrad in his fiction as well as his criticism: the militaristic power fantasies that seem inherent in SF's most basic narrative structures. He tells the story
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and in running the gauntlet of torches on a motorcycle. He and Stopa duel with truncheons, and Feric's truncheon breaks. Desperately he reaches out and picks up the "Great Truncheon of Stag Held" lying nearby—which can only be wielded by a descendant of the last true King of Heldon, Sigmark IV. The
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In Heldon proper, Feric dines in the "Eagle's Nest" tavern, and mulls over the question of how to change this situation. Should he enter politics or the military? Feric witnesses the oratory of Seph Bogel, leader of the Human Renaissance Party, who speaks eloquently but ineffectually to the crowd
376:. Few examples of the baseline human form can be seen, and most of humanity are mutants with blue skins, lizard scales or parrot beaks, or wizened half-breed mutants and normal-seeming but inhuman "Dominators", who desire to rule the ruined world with their mind-controlling powers.
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of Hitler's own life filtered through a fantasy lens, ending not in defeat but in global, indeed galactic, dominion: the Dominators represent the Jews, Heldon represents Germany, Feric Jaggar represents a cliché, wish-fulfillment, almost
326:, could accomplish. Finally, there is a casual mention that, while in this history Nazi Germany never came into being, it is the Soviets who have undertaken a systematic genocide of the Jews of Europe in this world's version of the
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detonates, and as the Dom planned, its fallout utterly corrupts the gene pool of Heldon. If any of its citizens, including Feric, reproduce, they will produce the mutants that they had previously sought to obliterate.
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the perfect specimens of the SS. Eventually they succeed and millions of the new master race are produced in 'reproduction works' to complete the cleansing of the Earth. At the novel's close, Heldon has mastered
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Backed by the army and the adoring multitudes, Feric sets about the great task of re-invigorating the military, ordering the production of tanks and fighter jets, the establishment of the Swastika Squad
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Feric orders the sterilization of the entire Heldon nation, including himself, and, in a final desperate gamble, orders the SS scientists to redouble their efforts to develop the next
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referred to as the "Time of Fire" which brought about the end of the civilization of the technologically advanced "Ancients" and the current despoliation of most forms of life. The
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veneer. The nested narrative is followed by a faux scholarly analysis by a fictional literary critic, Homer Whipple, which is said to have been written in 1959.
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583:. Spinrad has said that the original version of the novel was 70,000 words long, but that his editor requested he add an extra 10,000 words "to justify the
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of how he nearly bludgeoned readers with irony in The Iron Dream—only to find the novel placed on the American Nazi Party's recommended reading list.
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would create a large number of supporters for a movement. "After all," Dr. Whipple says, "it can't happen here", a reference to the political novel
278:, we learn more about the background of the alternate history in which Hitler emigrated to the United States. Without Hitler's leadership, the
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self-portrait, and Jaggar's initial return from Borgravia mirrors Hitler's own birth in Austria. The character of Stopa is similarly based on
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To make damn sure that even the historically naive and entirely unselfaware reader got the point, I appended a phony critical analysis of
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succeeded in fomenting a German communist revolution in 1930. As this alternate history continues, there is reference to a "Greater
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shortly before his death in 1953. In this timeline, Hitler emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1919 after the
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emigrated to the United States in 1919 and became a science fiction illustrator, editor, and author. He wrote his final
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Black Avengers immediately pledge fealty to him, and become the "Knights of the Swastika".
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as "the Great War", implying that there has been no equivalent of
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in this world. The core element in the historical backstory of
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put the book on its recommended reading list, despite the
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and premise is that "after dabbling in radical politics",
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opens in the year 1142 A.F.—"After Fire", the global
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554:ostensibly for plotting a coup against his leader.
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587:and the cover price they wanted to put on it."
336:is lauded for its qualities as a great work of
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372:of almost all life forms are corrupted by the
232:in six weeks in 1953, shortly before dying of
1043:Novels about World War II alternate histories
626:Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien
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617:proposed that Spinrad be considered for the
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31:Cover of first edition (paperback)
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280:Nazi Party
246:Hugo Award
87:Avon Books
641:satirical
591:Reception
483:does not
328:Holocaust
190:Great War
83:Publisher
744:Hawkwind
656:See also
539:pastiche
464:Analysis
458:Tau Ceti
238:syphilis
61:Language
926:Sources
585:advance
562:History
504:removed
489:sources
441:cloning
319:bushido
254:fanzine
202:fascism
148:2527317
64:English
861:", by
835:
766:pg 245
722:London
267:, and
228:novel
200:, pro-
37:Author
865:, in
537:is a
439:from
302:is a
257:Storm
164:1972
160:is a
119:Pages
69:Genre
833:ISBN
635:The
487:any
485:cite
194:pulp
142:OCLC
128:ISBN
573:'s
498:by
396:ale
381:DNA
240:);
122:255
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935:.
913:.
903:.
817:^
801:.
780:^
742:,
606:.
423:a
409:SS
350:.
330:.
271:.
263:,
75:,
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811:.
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724:.
525:)
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