Ready for the Fatherland

"Ready for the Fatherland" is a short story of alternate history by Harry Turtledove. It was published in ''What Might Have Been? Volume 3: Alternate Wars (eds. Gregory Benford and Martin H. Greenberg), q.v.; and Counting Up, Counting Down''', Ballantine/Del Rey 2002 (0345442261).

The story's point of departure comes in 1943, when Erich von Manstein kills Adolf Hitler in response to an insult. In short order, Hitler's successors make a separte peace with the Soviet Union, and are able to keep the Western Allies from gaining a toe hold in Italy and France. The Cold War becomes a three-way conflict, with the United States and Britian jostling against Germany and the Soviet Union.

The action of the story picks up in 1979, as two British agents travel to fascist Croatia to meet with a Serbian partisan, seeking British arms. In truth, the Brits are there to set the Serbian up, in exchange for their country having access to oil in German territory.

Structurally, "Ready for the Fatherland" is similar to Turtledove's story "Must and Shall". Each has a lengthy prologue establishing the POD, and the central characters in each are government agents, performing jobs that are ethically questionable. "Ready for the Fatherland" further is rather similar to the writings of John LeCarre, telling a story about the ugly pragmatism that shapes international politics, particularly the politics of the Cold War. Turtledove adds the wrinkle of a Nazi Germany continuing after World War II.