Yes, yes, I know. I said I wouldn’t read more in this series until I’d hit some nonfiction first — but the last book ended with the Dome of the Rock being blown up! How could I resist? The Impossible Nazi takes us further into truly alternative history, as there’s increasingly little about this 1942 that we’d recognize. At the moment most of the fighting is between Dai Nippon and the United States, and even that’s minimal: both sides lost the majority of their carrier fleets, and the US is buying German unterseebooten to prey on Jap shipping lanes. The English have lost all of Africa and have written off Australia for the time being, and yet Churchill persists in maintaining a state of war with Germany and exchanging air raids with Berlin. Both the American president, Henry Wallace, and the German chancellor Schloss are befuddled: why won’t the old man just write off France and Poland, and join forces with his American brothers to strike back against the Rising Sun? The events of Impossible Nazi, though, will shake things up multiple times.

Impossible strikes me as a transition novel, because while some major things happen, they don’t happen until the end of the story. For the most part, Herr Schloss — in his capacity as the German chancellor — is fending off attempts at assassinations from reactionary Nazis who resent his change of policies. This series is now poorly titled, in fact, because the Fuhrercouncil consists of almost entirely non-Nazis: they’re technically members of the party, sure, but Himmler and Hess are dead, von Ribbentrop has been shifted to making commercial treaties, and Goering is increasingly sidelined. The policy of Schloss’s Germany is no longer recognizable as Nazi, either: after inexplicably appearing in 1941 Germany in command of the Nazi party in the wake of Hitler’s death, Schloss has completely changed history to prevent Germany’s degradation and ruin. As mentioned in the first book, he is no moralist who wants to suddenly turn Germany into some comfortable democracy in Europe notable for its pretzels and lager: he’s more in the mark of Otto von Bismarck. He wants Germany to be the great power on the continent, so formidable that no one will mess with it. To that end, he has turned the Amis from near-enemies into near-friends; he has avoided war with Russia and is waiting for Stalin’s paranoia and the inherent stupidity of command economics to drag it down; and he has turned into The Friend of the Jews, facilitating the creation of the State of Judea. Here, his greatest enemy is not the English air force, Stalin, or even the Munich Nasties: it’s an increasingly desperate Winston Churchhill, who throws the dice and plunges both the United States and the United Kingdom into constitutional crises.

As my pace indicates, I’m enjoying this series very much — not only because Schloss is an interesting character, and not only because of the more inexplicable elements like the mysterious housekeeper who seems to know that Schloss is a man out of time. There are other ‘differences’ in the timeline, like Queen Margaret reining instead of George or Elizabeth (they were both killed in a bombing raid before the series even began), and the reader is as surprised to encounter these as Schloss is. It’s a lot less dangerous for us, though, because when he makes a misstep it feeds some rumors that he’s been replaced by the English, somehow, or has been sent by the gods as punishment for betraying Hitler’s vision. There are also amusing perversities happening, like the US Navy sailing U-boats, the Luftwaffe kitting itself out with B-17s, and so on. (The B-17 has a sadly shortened life in this universe: since there’s no Eighth Air Force constantly bombing Festung Europa from Britain, and B-17s don’t have any actionable range in a Pacific controlled by the Japs, only 500 were produced.) As with the other books, this one ends with a twisty hook — but one I will do my best to ignore for the present.

Highlights:

“Do you ever lie, Harry?” The senator stared at the president. “Mr. President, lying is a diplomatic tool that becomes quickly dulled from use. It is best exercised as little as possible.”

The difficult we can accomplish immediately. The impossible takes a bit longer.

“Have you thought we might have children, Darling?” she asked.
“We have talked about it,” he replied. “But, I have a lot on my schedule this morning.”

“Please, Your Majesty,” Attlee said. “We are civilized people. There are ways we can murder one another without bloodshed.”