50 Fun Facts About The Man in the High Castle

Which company's streaming service ordered The Man in the High Castle after its pilot became its most-watched ever?

Amazon released the pilot in January 2015 and let the audience response decide its fate. A full ten-episode season was ordered the following month.

Which author, whose stories also became Blade Runner and Total Recall, wrote the novel The Man in the High Castle?

Philip K. Dick published the novel in 1962. He planned a sequel but said he could not face going back to read about Nazis again.

In The Man in the High Castle, which American city did the Nazis destroy with an atomic bomb?

Washington was bombed in late 1945, and its ruins were renamed the District of Contamination. The American government surrendered soon afterwards.

Which martial art does Juliana Crain practise, and later teach in another world, in The Man in the High Castle?

Aikido is Juliana's discipline on screen, where she is on friendly terms with San Francisco's Japanese residents. In the original novel she works as a judo instructor instead.

Which famous film director was an executive producer of The Man in the High Castle through his own production company?

Ridley Scott produced it through his company Scott Free. Decades earlier he had filmed another novel by the same author as Blade Runner.

Which show tune plays over the opening titles of The Man in the High Castle, sung by Jeanette Olsson?

Edelweiss comes from The Sound of Music, where Captain von Trapp sings it as a farewell to the Austria he loves. It was the last song Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together.

Which British actor plays John Smith, the American-born SS officer, in The Man in the High Castle?

Rufus Sewell earned a Critics' Choice nomination for the part. He was already known for playing villains in A Knight's Tale and The Illusionist.

Which mountain range forms the Neutral Zone between Nazi and Japanese territory in The Man in the High Castle?

Rocky Mountains territory is left as a lawless buffer with no real government. Resistance groups shelter there while both empires send in spies.

Which ancient Chinese text did the author of the novel The Man in the High Castle use to plot the story?

I Ching readings shaped the plot. The characters consult the same book of divination before making their own big decisions.

In The Man in the High Castle, which president-elect's assassination changes history and lets the Axis win the war?

Franklin Roosevelt is killed by Giuseppe Zangara in the show's backstory. The real Zangara fired at him in Miami in 1933 and missed.

What is the name of the film collector known as the Man in the High Castle, played by Stephen Root?

Hawthorne Abendsen first appears in season two, surrounded by a vast archive of film reels. His real name is later revealed to be Abe Hawkes.

In The Man in the High Castle, which half-sister of Juliana Crain is shot moments after handing over a film?

Trudy Walker dies in the pilot, yet a living Trudy turns up at the end of season two. She comes from a world where Juliana was the one killed.

What is the name of the Japanese military police led by Chief Inspector Kido in The Man in the High Castle?

Kempeitai officers were real: the force policed the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 until it was disbanded after Japan's surrender in 1945.

In The Man in the High Castle, which inherited condition marks Thomas Smith for death under Nazi health laws?

Muscular dystrophy runs in his father's side of the family. Thomas, a devoted member of the Hitler Youth, finally turns himself in to be euthanised.

Before joining the Reich, John Smith of The Man in the High Castle served in which branch of the US military?

Army Signal Corps service is something he shares with the Man in the High Castle himself. The two men fought on the same side before the surrender.

At the start of The Man in the High Castle, Frank Frink works in a factory making replicas of what?

American pistols from before the war are what the factory copies. In his own time Frank makes original jewellery and sketches.

Which San Francisco antique dealer in The Man in the High Castle sells Americana to wealthy Japanese collectors?

Robert Childan craves the respect of his Japanese clients. In the final season the Crown Princess calls him a man of culture, fulfilling his life's dream.

In The Man in the High Castle, which friend of Frank Frink is blamed for shooting the Crown Prince?

Ed McCarthy is caught with Frank's gun and made the scapegoat. The real sniper was a Nazi agent hoping to provoke a war between the two empires.

Which real Nazi official plots to have Hitler assassinated in season one of The Man in the High Castle?

Reinhard Heydrich is arrested by John Smith and later shot on Smith's orders. The real Heydrich died in 1942 after an ambush on his car in Prague.

Which real Nazi leader takes control of the Reich at the end of season two of The Man in the High Castle?

Heinrich Himmler arrests the new chancellor as a traitor and addresses the world from the Volkshalle. In reality he died in British custody in May 1945.

In The Man in the High Castle, which real lawman runs the American Reich Bureau of Investigation?

J. Edgar Hoover, played by William Forsythe, digs up secrets about the Smith family. The real man led the FBI from its founding until his death in 1972.

Which real Nazi figure heads Project Nebenwelt, the research into travel between worlds, in The Man in the High Castle?

Josef Mengele runs the experiments inside a coal mine, sending captives into the anomaly. The real Mengele was a doctor at Auschwitz.

In The Man in the High Castle, Joe Blake learns in Berlin that he is a product of which real Nazi programme?

Lebensborn was founded in 1935 to raise birth rates among those the SS judged racially pure. Joe hears the news from his father, a powerful Reichsminister.

In which San Francisco landmark does Tagomi meditate before waking in another world in The Man in the High Castle?

Union Square is where he closes his eyes, holding a charm that belonged to Juliana. He opens them in a 1962 where the Allies won the war.

Which real Cold War emergency grips the alternate America that Tagomi first visits in The Man in the High Castle?

Cuban Missile Crisis tension fills the America he finds, one that won the Second World War. On a later visit he meets his wife, who has died in his own world.

Which actress, Andromeda in the 2010 film Clash of the Titans, plays Juliana Crain in The Man in the High Castle?

Alexa Davalos broke through in The Chronicles of Riddick and starred opposite Daniel Craig in the war film Defiance before leading the series.

In which Canadian city was most of The Man in the High Castle filmed after its pilot episode?

Vancouver hosted the series, with scenes shot downtown on West Georgia Street and at the University of British Columbia. The pilot had been filmed elsewhere.

Which American city stood in for San Francisco when the pilot of The Man in the High Castle was filmed?

Seattle supplied its monorail, the Paramount Theatre and the Pike Place Market area. A former coal town to the east played the Neutral Zone.

The Man in the High Castle won two Emmys in 2016: one for cinematography and one for which other craft?

Main title design went to a team including Patrick Clair. The series was also nominated that year for its visual effects and production design, without winning.

Adverts for The Man in the High Castle drew complaints in 2015 after covering what in Nazi imagery?

A New York subway car was wrapped in Reich eagles and Imperial Japanese flags. The transit authority pulled the campaign after the state governor objected.

Which former writer and producer of The X-Files created the TV version of The Man in the High Castle?

Frank Spotnitz adapted the novel and wrote the pilot himself. Eric Overmyer took over as showrunner for season three.

Which science fiction prize did the novel The Man in the High Castle win for Best Novel in 1963?

Hugo Award voters honoured it a year after publication. Ursula K. Le Guin later suggested it may be science fiction's first big, lasting contribution to American literature.

What is the title of the forbidden film that Joe Blake smuggles west in The Man in the High Castle?

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is thought to take its name from a verse in Ecclesiastes. In the original novel it is a banned book, not a set of newsreels.

Which American landmark do the Nazis destroy to launch Jahr Null in season three of The Man in the High Castle?

Statue of Liberty wreckage marks the start of 'Year Zero', a drive to wipe out the monuments of American history. The Reich's leader is shot by a sniper soon after.

In The Man in the High Castle, Chief Inspector Kido executes Frank Frink at which former internment camp?

Manzanar held more than 10,000 Japanese Americans at its peak during the real war. Kido drives Frank there and offers him an 'honourable' death by beheading.

In The Man in the High Castle, which mountain region hides the Nazi portal to other worlds inside a mine?

The Poconos hold the Lackawanna mine, where captives are sent into the anomaly. The Resistance later bombs John Smith's train on its way to the base.

In The Man in the High Castle, a traveller can only cross to another world if what is true there?

Their counterpart is dead: that is the rule the Man in the High Castle reveals to John Smith. Juliana proves it moments later by vanishing in front of him.

Black-market fixer Wyatt Price, an ally of Juliana Crain in The Man in the High Castle, comes from which country?

Ireland is where Wyatt says the Nazis killed half his family. He is played by Irish actor Jason O'Mara, who joined the cast for season three.

What is the profession of Berlin-born Nicole Dörmer, who meets Joe Blake in season two of The Man in the High Castle?

Filmmaker Nicole later moves to New York to work for the Ministry of Propaganda, joining a campaign to erase memories of the old United States.

What does Chief Inspector Kido of The Man in the High Castle vow to do if the Crown Prince's shooter escapes?

Commit seppuku is exactly what the captain of the Imperial Guard does after the shooting. Kido escapes the same fate only by pinning the crime on a scapegoat.

Which organised crime group does Frank Frink forge antiques for to repay a debt in The Man in the High Castle?

The Yakuza lock up Frank and his partner once their fake antiques are exposed. Kido later shoots the gang's boss, sure that he is working with the Nazis.

How does John Smith die in the final episode of The Man in the High Castle, after his train is bombed?

He kills himself when Juliana corners him beside the wreck. His second-in-command then calls off the invasion of the Pacific States at the last moment.

What happens at the Nazi portal in the closing scene of The Man in the High Castle?

Thousands of people emerge from other worlds, for reasons the story never explains. The Man in the High Castle himself walks the other way, into a new life.

Nazi official Rudolph Wegener poses as a businessman from which country in The Man in the High Castle?

Sweden gives him cover while he passes nuclear secrets to the Japanese. In the original novel the same defector travels under the name Baynes.

What is the nickname of the undercover Nazi agent Juliana Crain throws to his death in The Man in the High Castle?

The Origami Man seems to be her Resistance contact at the diner where she works. Her real contact turns out to be her boss.

Which symbol drawn by Frank Frink becomes the emblem of the Resistance in The Man in the High Castle?

A rising sun spreads across the Pacific States from his refuge in a Catholic enclave. After his death, friends hang a huge banner of it from Coit Tower.

Tagomi of The Man in the High Castle brings home a film of a hydrogen bomb test at which Pacific site?

Bikini Atoll footage persuades the Reich that Japan has the bomb, which averts a war. The real United States set off its most powerful device there in 1954.

Which broadcaster announced a four-part adaptation of The Man in the High Castle in 2010, years before the series?

BBC One planned it as a four-part drama with the same executive producer attached. The project then moved to Syfy as a miniseries before becoming a streaming series.

Which Austrian fortress, also seen in Where Eagles Dare, plays Hitler's alpine retreat in The Man in the High Castle?

Hohenwerfen appears from outside as the Führer's headquarters in the season one finale. The meeting inside was filmed at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

In the original novel The Man in the High Castle, the title character lives in which Wyoming city?

Cheyenne is where Juliana finds him in an ordinary house, having given up his fortified estate. On television she instead wakes up among his film collection.