History Literature / TheCenturyTrilogy

''The Century Trilogy'' is, as the name indicates, a trilogy of novels by Ken Follett which tell the history of the 20th century through the eyes of five interrelated families--American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh. The trilogy consists of the following novels:

* FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy: Erik von Ulrich, a Wehrmacht medic, is extremely aghast after witnessing SS murdering civilians, implying that Wehrmacht had no idea about German atrocities. This is called "Myth of clean Wehrmacht" (Mythos der Saubere Wehrmacht) and is a thoroughly debunked lie made up by Germans after World war 2, in order to shift the blame completely on Hitler and few high-ranking nazis. Wehrmacht and even German police routinely took part in worst atrocities, including mass murders of POWs and civilians and even sent letters about it back home (Timothy Snyder - Black Earth), so Germans did know everything or almost everything. What is even worse is the fact that soldiers basically weren't punished for refusing orders to commit atrocities (another myth, called Befehlsnotstand, was made up after the war as a method of defense at courts with lower ranking war criminals, and unfortunately mostly succeeded in getting them off the hook.

* FalselyAdvertisedAccuracy: Erik von Ulrich, a Wehrmacht medic, is extremely aghast after witnessing SS murdering civilians, implying that Wehrmacht had no idea about German atrocities. This is called "Myth of clean Wehrmacht" (Mythos der Saubere Wehrmacht) and is a thoroughly debunked lie made up by Germans after World war 2, in order to shift the blame completely on Hitler and few high-ranking nazis. Wehrmacht and even German police routinely took part in worst atrocities, including mass murders of POWs and civilians and even sent letters about it back home (Timothy Snyder - Black Earth), so Germans did know everything or almost everything. What is even worse is the fact that soldiers basically weren't punished for refusing orders to commit atrocities (another myth, called Befehlsnotstand, was made up after the war as a method of defense at courts with lower ranking war criminals, and unfortunately mostly succeeded in getting them off the hook)

* ManOnFire: After the explosion in the Aberowen coal mine.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Erik von Ulrich, one of the surviving viewpoint characters from ''Winter of the World'', never even gets mentioned here.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Pinksy, the nasty police officer who was the major villain of Grigori's story in ''Giants'', appeared to be set up to continue to be a problem in the second, but is nowhere to be found (that said, it's not hard to imagine that he was killed either in the Russian Civil War or during Stalin's purges).

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse?: Carla's brother Erik is shown in the family tree at the beginning of the book, but never mentioned in the story at any point.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Pinksy, the nasty police officer who was the major villain of Grigori's story in ''Giants'', appeared to be set up to continue to be a problem in the second, but is nowhere to be found.

* AmericaSavesTheDay: Averted. During TheGreatPoliticsMessUp, Cam Dewar's colleague points out that the USA has actually contributed rather little to the fall of communism, in spite of all their efforts, which often even proved to be counterproductive.

* EvilVersusEvil: Much is made of the fact that the Nazis and the Communists are about equally horrible and frequently [[NotSoDifferent oddly similar in their methods and outlooks]] despite hating each other with a passion. Old-school conservatives/capitalists are treated as something of a third antagonist faction, though they are presented somewhat more sympathetically.
* GeneralRipper: While Volodya's Army Intelligence boss is occasionally willing to criticize the NKVD and their methods with him [[{{Hypocrite}} he]] [[NotSoDifferent isn't much better]]. After a contact cuts ties with them out of anger fo the NKVD [[RightHandVsLeftHand accidentally arresting and torturing his girlfriend]], the general is seen planning to force the guy back by arresting the girlfriend again and threatening to torture her even worse despite knowing she's innocent. Later, near the end of the book he authorizes making Volodya's wife TheScapegoat for America developing the Atom bomb first, lets her be arrested under humiliating circumstances and [[IHaveYourWife threatens to execute her unless Volodya goes to America and steals the secrets of the American bomb]].

* CIAEvilFBIGood: The CIA (for whom Cam Dewar is working) doesn't get away very well in this book. The FBI too at first, but after the dead of J. Edgar Hoover, they start taking their job seriously and investigate against UsefulNotes/RichardNixon.