Swastika Night

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Swastika Night

Cover of the Feminist Press edition of Swastika Night
Author Murray Constantine
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Dystopian Novel
Publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd
Publication date 1937
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 287 pp
ISBN 093531256-0

Swastika Night is a futuristic novel published by "Murray Constantine" in 1937 and republished in 1940. Its author's name was a pseudonym for Katharine Burdekin. Swastika Night was a Left Book Club selection in 1940.

The novel is based on Hitler's claims that Nazism would create a "Thousand Year Reich". Despite its similarity to an alternate history novel, the text, written prior to World War II, plays out in a way which is extreme though believable, considering the peculiar character of the Nazi State. At the time of writing, the book was not an alternate history but rather a plausible future history, which did not come true.

The novel bears striking similarities to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, published more than a decade later: the past has been destroyed and history is rewritten, language is distorted, few books exist apart from propaganda, and a secret book is the only witness to the past.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The novel is set seven hundred years after Nazism achieved power, by which time Hitler is worshipped as a god. Though no major character is female, the story concentrates on the oppression of women, portraying the Nazis as homosexual misogynists. In the world of the novel, Christians are marginalized, Jews have been eliminated and women deprived of all rights. (At the time of writing, it was by no means obvious that the Nazis meant to go as far as exterminating all Jews - not even to the Jews themselves).

The novel holds that Germany and Japan won the "Twenty Years War", roughly analogous to World War II, though as the name suggests it took Germany twenty years to achieve final victory, by eventually subduing the Soviet Union. The protagonist is an Englishman, Alfred, who is visiting Germany on pilgrimage. The English are loathed because they were the last opponents of Nazi Germany to hold out in the "Twenty Years War". Swastika Night correctly postulates the importance of aircraft during the war, and Burdekin skillfully worked this into the detail of the story. One of the religious sites Alfred was to visit was the "Sacred Airplane", which, according to long established dogma, Adolf Hitler personally flew in a mission to Moscow, thus achieving victory.

The drastic rewriting of history, which occurred after living memory of the life of Hitler, or the period where meaningful resistance to Germany existed, can be seen to be the logical extension of Burdekin's contemporary view of Nazi Germany. According to official history, Hitler is a god. He was tall, had long blonde hair, and personally won the war. Alfred is astounded when shown a secret historic photograph depicting Hitler and a girl before a crowd. Firstly, he is shocked by the appearance of Hitler as a small man with dark hair, and a slight paunch. The crowd seems more interested in the girl, and this does not fit into the world view where Hitler is a god. The most shocking thing the photograph betrays, however, is the appearance of the girl. Alfred believed it a boy, since the figure is prideful, has attractive long blonde hair, and is being appreciated by the crowd. Females have developed into self-loathing, pathetic creatures who are having increasing difficulty in performing their sole utility: reproduction.

In this future the Japanese rule the Americas, Australia and Asia to the borders of European Russia and Persia. Though they are the only rival superpower to the Nazi-dominated west, the inevitable wars which were fought between these two powers have always resulted in stalemate. Both the Germans and the Japanese are experiencing difficulties in maintaining the population due to the increasing physical degeneracy of the women.

Though Alfred is eventually murdered by the SS, he passes on the truth about Nazi history to his son, who survives.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Katherine Burdekin: Swastika Night: Old Westbury: Feminist Press: 1985: ISBN 0935312560

[edit] References

  • Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 83. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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