1945 (novel)

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1945
Author Newt Gingrich
William R. Forstchen
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Alternate history
Publisher Baen Books
Publication date August 1, 1995
Media type Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages 400 pp
ISBN ISBN 978-0671877392
Not to be confused with the novel of the same title by Robert Conroy

1945 is an alternate history co-authored by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen in 1995, describing the period immediately after a World War II wherein the United States had fought only against Japan, allowing Nazi Germany to defeat the Soviet Union, after which the two victors confront each other in a cold war which swiftly turns hot.

The book is unique in having been written by a well-known politician and published when the author was at the peak of a quite controversial career, with criticism of the book for its merits (or lack thereof) and criticism of the author for his political stance being almost inextricably mixed. Almost invariably, reviews mentioned the "pouting sex kitten," a character who appeared only in the prologue.


Contents

[edit] Plot

At the start of the novel, the United States, having won over Japan, is in no mood to enter a new war, and Americans accept the fait accompli of German domination over Europe. A kind of alternate Cold War seems in the offing; even the British, with a German-dominated Europe at their doorstep, squander much of their resources on a colonial war in formerly French Indochina.

US President Andrew Harrison (the writers chose to have a fictional character in this role rather than Harry Truman or some other historical character who might have succeeded Roosevelt on this timeline) has a summit with Hitler at Reykjavik, Iceland. However the meeting goes badly, the two leaders sharply confront each other and Hitler secretly decides to accelerate preparations for a surprise attack on both the US and Britain. As part of these preparations, a beautiful German spy manages to seduce and suborn the White House Chief of Staff and make him a key German spy.

The book's protagonist, Lieutenant Commander James Martel - at the inception Head of Naval Intelligence at the American Embassy in Berlin - is one of the few who suspects the gathering storm, watching the new weapons displayed at the parade commemorating Germany's victory over the Soviet Union and encountering the well-known commando Otto Skorzeny who would be his main opponent throughout the book.

Skorzeny makes meticulous secret preparations for raids to destroy the US atomic bomb programs in Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. (During the war with Japan, the Manhattan Project was put on the backburner, so that in 1945 the US is far from already possessing a nuclear bomb.) The bulk of the book is devoted to Martel, back in the US, getting a glimmering of the threatened attack and unsuccessfully trying to sound a warning.

The German raid does take place, and though eventually beaten back it has succeeded in causing great damage, killing key scientists and setting the US nuclear program back to the point where Germany is ahead in the nuclear race; moreover, the Germans seize the Uranium mines in the Congo, while launching all-out war against Britain.

The book ends with a cliffhanger — Rommel invading Scotland, the British facing a desperate fight, and Churchill imploring the Americans "come quickly, this is much worse than 1940" — but a promised sequel, provisionally called Fortress Europa, has yet to be written, though many years have passed and the writers had meanwhile completed a different alternate history trilogy (beginning with Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War).

In our history, "Fortress Europe" was the Nazi concept of making German-occupied Europe impregnable to the invasion which was clearly coming since the US started massing its forces in Britain in 1943. In D-Day this "fortress" was decisively breached. The projected book's name seems to suggest that the same would happen in this history, some years behind schedule (and without a Soviet army simultaneously coming in from the east).

[edit] Critical response

The book drew many negative reviews which Gingrich supporters claimed were biased and politically-motivated (see [1]). A key criticism of the book is the conceit that the USSR would have lost the war without U.S. assistance. Historical scholars agree that the Soviet Union could probably have defeated Nazi Germany without U.S. or British aid.

It has been described as being a disguised tract against gun control[1] as a key scene depicts an armed Tennessee civilian militia, led by Alvin York, defeating Otto Skorzeny's commandos who raid Oak Ridge.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Book Review of 1945

[edit] See also

[edit] External links