Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle is an alternate history novel that centers around the aftermath of the Axis power’s victory in the Second World War. In this version of history, Germany is seen to turn on Japan after they win the war in order to achieve world domination. Although this is very believable since world domination was always Germany’s goal during the Second World War, the loose friendliness between the two nations is very implausible. This loose friendliness that is portrayed in the book is the thing that keeps Germany from taking over more land sooner. However, that doesn’t really align with what is seen in Germany since Hitler wanted to follow the policy of Lebensraum. Lebensraum is an extremely expansionist policy that claims it is in Nazi Germany’s best interest to take as much land as they can in order to support their people and naturally allow them to develop as the growing pure race. Therefore, Germany would not have come to an agreement with Japan to split the land. Instead, it is more plausible that Germany would almost immediately wage another war with Japan to gain more their territory within the first few weeks of the Axis powers winning the Second World War so that they can achieve their foreign policy of Lebensraum.
Works Cited
Weisiger, Alex. “World War II: German Expansion and Allied Response.” In Logics of War: Explanations for Limited and Unlimited Conflicts, 105–40. Cornell University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt1xx5pk.8.
