The Man in the High Castle and the Nebenwelt

The Man in the High Castle is an American television series based on the novel by Philip K. Dick, published in 1962.

Warning! Spoiler alert! If you have not yet seen this amazing work of art, then we advise you to watch the full series. You can watch The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Prime.

The Man in the High Castle

America in the 1960's. A world of Nazi and Japanese Empire domination. Old automobiles and impressive buildings. The classic Concorde airplane. High ranking Nazis, including Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and Josef Mengele. The resistance against fascism. The Black Communist Rebellion (BCR) who are very successful with their armed resistance against the Japanese Pacific States.
Mysterious films. Love affairs. An American antique shop with amazing stuff. The development of personalities. Secret Nazi experiments and time-travel to other worlds, which some refer to as: other dimensions and timelines. These are some of the ingredients of this amazing story.

It's America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war — and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.

Source: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick | Goodreads

The story of The Man in the High Castle is about an alternative timeline where the Nazi's won World War 2 and they've occupied a large part of America, known as: The Nazi American Reich. Another part of America is occupied by the Japanese empire. Their area is called: the Japanese Pacific States. In between those two occupied areas there's an area called: the neutral zone. 

In this story we follow the main character Juliana Crain (played by Alexa Davalos).
She's on a quest to find out the truth about the killing of her half sister Trudy Walker (played by Conor Leslie), who was killed by the Kempeitai (Kenpeitai), which is a sort of security policemen of the Japanese Empire.

Her sister Trudy gave her a film before Trudy was killed. When Juliana Crain watched the film, she is shocked and knows that this film can change the future and therefore she needs to know more about the origins of this film and its creator, who goes by the name of: The Man in the High Castle.

Kenpeitai

The Kenpeitai (憲兵隊, "Military Police Corps", /kɛnpeɪˈtaɪ/), also known as Kempeitai, was the military police or gendarmerie of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspected of being anti-Japanese. While institutionally part of the army, the Kenpeitai also discharged military police functions for the Imperial Japanese Navy under the direction of the Admiralty Minister (although the IJN had its own much smaller Tokkeitai), those of the executive police under the direction of the Home Minister and those of the judicial police under the direction of the Justice Minister. A member of the Kenpeitai corps was called a kenpei (憲兵).

Source: wikipedia.org

Nazi American Reich

The American Reich, officially known as the Nazi American Reich, was an autonomous state within the Greater Nazi Reich, consisting roughly of the eastern and Midwestern halves of the former United States, and Canada. It bordered the Neutral Zone to the West, and Mexico to the South.

Source: American Reich | The Man in the High Castle Wikia | Fandom

The Man in the High Castle (1962), by Philip K. Dick, is an alternative history novel wherein the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the life of several characters living under Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The titular character is the mysterious author of a novel-within-the-novel entitled The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a subversive alternative history of the war in which the Allied Powers are victorious.

Dick's thematic inspirations include the alternative history of the American Civil War, Bring the Jubilee (1953), by Ward Moore, and the I Ching, a Chinese book of divination that features in the story and the actions of the characters. The Man in the High Castle won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963, and was adapted to television for Amazon Prime Video as The Man in the High Castle in 2015.

Source: The Man in the High Castle - Wikipedia

In a dystopian America dominated by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a young woman discovers a mysterious film that may hold the key to toppling the totalitarian regimes.

Source: The Man in the High Castle (TV Series 2015–2019) - IMDb

"The Man in the High Castle" is an alternate history novel by Philip K. Dick. It is set in a world in which the Axis powers have won World War II. This map is inspired by Dick's story and shows a plausible division of the former (in the novel) United States, without Alaska and Hawaii, in the four states described in the novel. However, some of the borders drawn in it are speculative and not backed by anything in the book.

Source: wikimedia.org

United States of America (remaining territory), under German military government.

 

"The South", puppet regime under German control.

 

Rocky Mountain States, buffer zone under Japanese oversight

 

Pacific States of America, puppet regime under Japanese control

The Nebenwelt Project

What we found most fascinating in the TV series The Man in the High Castle is the concept of: Nebenwelt. Translated from German to English it means: Subworld. The German word Neben means: next to. And Welt means: world.  A better translation for Nebenwelt would be: The Next to World.

In the TV series the Nazis have also another name for Nebenwelt which is the alt world, the alternative world. The Nebenwelt is an alternative timeline that is evolving on it's own. It's runs parallel with the timeline of of the story in The Man in the High Castle.

In the series we follow the main characters who are living in 1962 in the world after WW2 which was won by the Nazi's and the Japanese Empire. The Nebenwelt - the parallel timeline - is our world, as we know it. The world in which the Nazi's didn't won the war.

 

 

Die Nebenwelt

Die Nebenwelt, also known as Projekt 701, was a scientific project overseen by the Ahnenerbe Institute of the Greater Nazi Reich and directed by Dr. Josef Mengele.

Its goal was to produce a quantum tunneling device that could artificially replicate the means by which "Travelers" were able to physically cross between alternate worlds. Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler sought to use Die Nebenwelt to gain access to these alternate worlds in order to invade and conquer them for the Reich until they found out it was impossible because individual human beings could only travel to other worlds where they did not already exist or are dead.

Source: Die Nebenwelt | The Man in the High Castle Wikia | Fandom

The Old Mine

The Nazis discovered an anomaly in an old mine shaft which led them to the discovery of the time tunnel. They built their Nebenwelt Project and machine in an underground location, around the area of the mine. With this machine they're able to control the anomaly and they can open and close it at their will. They use a small railway track with a moving platform going into the anomaly. First they used prisoners as test objects. These people were chained on the moving platform so they can't escape their fate.

See also: Remote Controlled Mining Operations on Earth ⇒

The moving platform transports these people into the bright light of the anomaly at the end of the tunnel. And when it has reached the end of the tunnel in the bright light, they moving platform is then returned to the base station. During the first experiments they discovered that not all people returned. Some of them evaporated in the bright light and only their iron name plates (dog tags) were left on the moving platform.

The Nazis found out that the reason why some people didn't returned and were evaporated into thin air, is because a person can't enter the other timeline if the other version of that person is living in the other timeline.

 

There exist a version of each person on both timelines, but it's not possible to enter the other timeline, if the other version exists in the other timeline. But it's possible to enter the other timeline if there's no another version of you on that timeline.

 

There Are More Worlds or Other Timelines

But wait! There's more. The Nazis discovered that the Nebenwelt is not the only other timeline or world. They identified more worlds, more Nebenwelts. And of course their goal it to conquer them all.

In one scene of the TV series there's a room with mirrors on the walls and ceiling.
And in the center of the room there's an installation which shows the other worlds that are connected with the world of The Man in the High Castle.

The green central globe is the world of The Man in the High Castle. The other smaller globes are the other worlds, which they sometimes refer to as: other dimensions or timelines. These other worlds are connected to certain places on the main green globe. And these places are the locations where other anomalies (timetunnels) were discovered.

Maybe there's a timetunnel anomaly nearby your location?

A Timetransportal artist's impression of the Nebenwelt timetunnel model.

The Time Transportal

What the Nazis built is literally a portal to another world called the Nebenwelt.

The timeline of the Nebenwelt is evolving parallel with their own world. They're able to travel back and forth between the Nebenwelt and their own world. They are not able to travel to other worlds which they also have discovered. In the story of The Man in the High Castle it's not clear if those other worlds also have parallel timelines. They have only been discovered recently but not explored yet.

It's an amazing idea to think about, that there are other worlds or dimensions with exact the same people in each world, living in different settings and circumstances, moving parallel with each other's timelines.

This would mean that there's a version of you in another dimension, on the same date, living a different life. Example given: you could be a cars salesman in 2023 in this world, and the other version of you is working for the secret military police in 2023 in another dimension or timeline.

Déja Vu Timeline Junction
In 2016 we wrote an article called Déja Vu Junction. It's about the concept of another version of a person that exist on another timeline. A Déja Vu could be a situation when both versions of that person are doing the same thing or having the same thoughts at the same, each on its own timeline.

If there are several timelines where you exist then the junction of timelines theory may explain the Déjà vu.
For example: On one timeline you're travelling from work to home. You get at your home, turn on the television and make coffee. Meanwhile on the television you hear someone talking about cooking. And then you feel the Déjà vu ...

Source: Déjà vu Vu. A Junction of Timelines? (timetransportal.com)

In the TV series The Man in the High Castle there's no mention of Déja Vu.

The Nazi Bell

Die Nebenwelt, also known as Projekt 701 in the TV series The Man in the High Castle is perhaps not science fiction after all and could be based on science fact.

The Nazis had various strange experiments and devices such as: the Hanebu (or Haunebu) flying disc and the Bell, also know as: Glocke. The Hanebu flying discs can be seen in the movie: Iron Sky. And the Glocke (the Bell) is a mysterious device.

Is the Glocke capable to create a portal to another time or dimension?

Die Glocke Conspiracy

Die Glocke or translate into "The Bell" is a metallic object that consisted of a purple liquid substance called "Xerum 525".

This machine would soon become the Top Secret Nazi Wunderwaffe. They believed it would bend space and time.

Source: Die glocke conspiracy: by Aliciana Infante (prezi.com)

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Einstein’s Anti-gravity
By Tim Ventura with revision by John Dering
January 1, 2005

During the course of researching his best-selling book "The Hunt for Zero Point", Nick Cook stumbled upon World War II era evidence for a secret Nazi Weapon that came to be known as the “Nazi Bell” device. This device was constructed by a scientific team reporting to SS General Hans Kammler under a veil of secrecy deeper than even that of the Nazi nuclear research.

While Cook’s research yielded little information about the specific design or application of the Nazi Bell device, his sources indicated that it apparently was able create a variety of startling effects on nearby objects.

It has been speculated that the Bell device was designed to use high-speed, counter-rotating components filled with specialized materials and energized by electromagnetic energy to induce “torsion” effects and thus control gravity and other significant effects.

John Dering -- a physicist specializing advanced directed energy, nonlinear electrodynamics, and new energy sources -- has further reported on a “Rhine Valley” facility and device. He believes this to have been an actual wartime prototype deployment of a successor to the Nazi Bell experiments, which were carried out in the Wenceslas Mine research lab in occupied Poland. While the Bell experiment was focused on developing a radical new propulsion technology, the little-known Rhine Valley experiment may have been a last-ditch attempt to weaponize the Bell’s dangerous side effect for use against Allied forces.

Source: Die Glocke ("The Bell") (greyfalcon.us)

GERMAN UFOs

Since the 1950s there were many claims about alleged German developments of revolutionary saucer-shaped crafts able to fly with incredible performances, from a sort of "supersonic helicopter" to hard-to-believe interstellar spaceships.

These crafts were believed the same "flying saucers" (later named UFOs) sighted by many people all around the world since 1947. According to the many would-be "inventors" and enthusiasts of this theory, UFOs would not be of extraterrestrial origin but man-made. According to the many would-be "inventors" and enthusiasts of this theory, UFOs would not be of extraterrestrial origin but man-made.

The "German saucers" are often known also as the "V-7 legend": this comes from a reportedly circular aircraft named "V-7" that is claimed to have flown in Prague on February 14, 1945.

The conventional view of history is that, while the Germans possessed some remarkable and deadly weapons such as the V-l, the V-2 and the jet-engined Messerschmitt ME-262 fighter, their technological innovations did not extend much further than that. Indeed, serious historians treat claims of fantastic advances in Nazi technology with the utmost disdain.

The problem is that the majority of people that dispute German disc developments have never heard of these largely classified devices. Ignorance does not make them myths.

Granted, Rudolf Lusar, Renato Vesco, Justo Miranda, and Ernst Zündel have made some grievous errors in telling the story of German disc aircraft development during WW2; however, the disc development programs did exist and there is more than adequate proof of them.

The US 415th NFS encountered German disc weapons launched from below their aircraft over German-held territory which interfered with the aircraft's prop engines. Official photographs and "Foo Fighter" documentation of these German weapons exist and are available to the public despite the USAAF never explaining what that weapon was. Other official US Army and AAF Technical Intelligence Reports from 1945 list similar strange flight craft encountered over the Reich in the last year of the war.

Source: germanufos.greyfalcon.us

The Film and the Power of Imagination

The TV series begins with a mysterious film. Soon it turns out that this film was recorded on the other timeline, the Nebenwelt.

The film was recorded in the world were the Nazis lost the war in 1945. The film is made from fragments of news broadcasts and footage of people who were recording the world of the other timeline. It shows the collapse of the Nazi empire, were Nazi emblems, flags and swastika are being removed from buildings.

Further in the TV series we can see that this is not the only film, there are many other films. Adolf Hitler is aware of the existence films and knows about the other timeline-worlds. He tries to collect all films. The resistance who are fighting the Nazi and the Japanese Empire also know about these films.

Some people in the resistance who saw the films believe that showing images of the other dimension (the other world) to people, will cause the breakdown of the Nazi empire. When people see the films of an alternative world, were Nazis lost the war, they will imagine their own world as being free from Nazi and Japanese domination as well.
The resistance believes that the power of imagination, stimulated by the films, will cause people to act and fight the Nazis and the Japanese Empire.

Mind Over Matter

In TV series there are also people who are able to travel between the two worlds or timelines by them self, without the need or the Nazi time tunnel machine or any other device. They use the power of Mind Over Matter. These people are called Travelers.

The Trade Minister of the Japanese Pacific States, Nobusuke Tagomi (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) and his trusted aide Kotomichi (played by Arnold Chun) are both travelers. They have seen and experienced the other world where there's no war and no Nazi nor Japanese Domination. And they also believe that showing films from the other world to people on their own timeline can change things for the greater good which will result in peace.

Nobusuke Tagomi is using the I Ching a lot. He's consulting this ancient Chinese oracle for decision making and to know the (near) future. But there's no connection between the I Ching and his capability to travel to the other timeline, the Nebenwelt.

Nobusuke Tagomi

Tagomi, who somehow found himself seeing an alternate world-line through meditation during the season one finale, continues to become more and more intrigued by the things he witnessed and begins his quest to seek answers on the mysteries of this alternate world-line.

Finding himself back in his own office in the Trade building, Tagomi realizes that Kotomichi knows of his departure and that Tagomi is a "traveler," who is able to travel between alternate realities. Kotomichi confirms, revealing his own personal history to Tagomi.

Source: Nobusuke Tagomi | The Man in the High Castle Wikia | Fandom

I Ching

The I Ching or Yi Jing (Chinese: 易經, Mandarin: [î tɕíŋ] (listen)), usually translated Book of Changes or Classic of Changes, is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics.

Originally a divination manual in the Western Zhou period (1000–750 BC), the I Ching was transformed over the course of the Warring States and early imperial periods (500–200 BC) into a cosmological text with a series of philosophical commentaries known as the "Ten Wings".

Source: I Ching - Wikipedia

The Atomic Bomb

In the world of The Man in the High Castle the Nazis used an atomic bomb on December 11, 1945 on Washington D.C.

Heisenberg Device

The Heisenberg Device is the official name for the Atomic Bomb in the The Man in the High Castle timeline. It derives its name from that of its creator, Dr. Werner Heisenberg.

The Greater Nazi Reich became the first country to develop an atomic bomb in 1945, as the Reich and the Japanese Empire conducted concurrent invasions of the United States of America on both coasts. The Nazis dropped a Heisenberg Device on Washington D.C. on December 11, 1945, destroying the city, the United States government, and much of its military leadership. However, victory was not declared until September 18, 1947, when the last of the American Resistance capitulated.

Source: Heisenberg Device | The Man in the High Castle Wikia | Fandom

When Nobusuke Tagomi, the Trade Minister of the Japanese Pacific States travels to the other world with only the power of his mind, he's staying there for a few days.

He lives with his family on the other timeline-world, the Nebenwelt. While staying there he saw news footage of the atomic bomb test on the French pacific islands.

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Operation Crossroads

Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The purpose of the tests was to investigate the effect of nuclear weapons on warships.

The Crossroads tests were the first of many nuclear tests held in the Marshall Islands, and the first to be publicly announced beforehand and observed by an invited audience, including a large press corps. They were conducted by Joint Army/Navy Task Force One, headed by Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy rather than by the Manhattan Project, which had developed nuclear weapons during World War II. A fleet of 95 target ships was assembled in Bikini Lagoon and hit with two detonations of Fat Man plutonium implosion-type nuclear weapons of the kind dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, each with a yield of 23 kilotons of TNT (96 TJ).

Source: Operation Crossroads - Wikipedia

Nobusuke Tagomi is able to bring a film with footage of this atomic bomb test back to his own timeline, the world where the Nazis and Japanese Empire won the war. Tagomi strongly believes that showing this footage to other people will serve as a warning of the dangers of the development of nuclear weapons.
The French pacific islands atomic bomb test is far more stronger compared to the Heisenberg Device that was used in December 11, 1945 on Washington D.C. in the world of The Man in the High Castle.

Operation Crossroads is an interesting name for an atomic bomb test. Read more about strange names of atomic bomb tests in: Nuclear Transportal ⇒

The TV Series is a Masterpiece

The decors, props and scenes are very detailed and realistic. The coloring of the TV series is somewhat dull, like 1960's coloring, but still bright enough to catch all details with nice soft shades. The lighting is wonderful, giving all scenes the right balance between light and dark. The actors are absolutely excellent. And the relaxed pace of the editing of scenes is very well done, for the fast development of the storyline.

BEHIND THE VISUAL EFFECTS OF “THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE”

“The Man in the High Castle” is a fairly new television show that took on the challenge of alternate history and got it right. The Amazon Studios series has already received numerous awards in only two seasons, including praise for its outstanding special visual effects.

Source: Behind the Visual Effects of “The Man in the High Castle” - NYFA

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In The Man in the High Castle alternative history, Giuseppe Zangara successfully assassinates President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, resulting in the continuation of the Great Depression and the policy of United States non-interventionism at the start of World War II in 1939. American inaction allows Nazi Germany to conquer and annex continental Europe and the Soviet Union into the Greater Germanic Reich. The exterminations of the Jews, the Romani people, the Slavs, homosexuals, and all other peoples whom the Nazis considered subhuman ensued. The Axis powers then jointly conquered Africa. Imperial Japan expanded its colonial empire with occupations of eastern Asia and Oceania, and invaded the West Coast of the United States, while Nazi Germany invaded the East Coast; the surrender of the Allies ended World War II in 1947.

By the 1960s, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany are the world's superpowers, fighting a geopolitical cold war over the former United States. Japan extended the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere with the establishment of the Pacific States of America (PSA), with the politically neutral Rocky Mountain States acting as a buffer with the Nazi states to the east. Nazi North America is composed of two countries: The South, which is ruled by a collaborationist pro-Nazi puppet regime; and the North, which is the United States of America, ruled by a Nazi military governor. Moreover, Canada remains an independent country, despite having been one of the anti-Nazi Allies in the lost war.

The aged Adolf Hitler is incapacitated by tertiary syphilis, Martin Bormann is the acting Chancellor of Germany, and the inner-circle Nazis—Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Hermann Göring, Arthur Seyss-Inquart—vie to succeed Hitler as the Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich. Technologically, the Nazis have drained the Mediterranean Sea for lebensraum and farmland, developed and used the hydrogen bomb, developed rockets for travelling throughout the world and into outer space, such as the colonization missions to the Moon, and to the planets Venus and Mars.

Source: The Man in the High Castle - Wikipedia

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The Grasshopper Lies Heavy

Several characters in The Man in the High Castle read the popular novel The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, by Hawthorne Abendsen, which title the readers presume derives from The Bible verse fragment: "The grasshopper shall be a burden" (Ecclesiastes 12:5). As an alternative history of the Second World War, wherein the Allies defeat the Axis Powers, the Nazi regime bans The Grasshopper Lies Heavy in the South, whereas the Pacific States of America do allow the publication and sale of the Abensen's counterfactual novel.

Source: The Man in the High Castle - Wikipedia

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The Man in the High Castle is a great series to watch. Not only for the intriguing storyline of various people and the Nazi time portal machine The amazing visuals, acting and soundtrack are worth watching as well.

The TV series is showing us another world, which could be very real.

The Man in the High Castle and the Nebenwelt - A Story About A Time Transportal

Written and compiled by: Taimusupāku sōchi, Der Zeitfunken Gerat and the Time Transportal Team, 2023.

Picture of bright blue light by: Buddy_Nath - Pixabay.com
Picture of old film projector by: konstantinrotkevich - Pixabay.com

The Statue of Liberty drawing used in this article is a Timetransportal artist's impression of the Statue of Liberty as seen on the TV series' poster.
The time transportal doesn't own the rights of the image on the TV series' poster. The drawing we made is an artistic impression to be used as an illustration for this article.