Customer Reviews

Fox on the Rhine

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The story is set up with what is likely the most used premise in alternate history, the premature death of Adolph Hitler. However, this book had Hitler staying alive until 1944 when the failed attempt on his life succeeded. With Hitler dead, the war unfolds. Hitler's inept meddling of the military is ended. For example, Hitler wanted to use the jet powered ME-262 plane as a bomber, when he desperately needed fighter planes to counteract the massive Allied air superiority. Rommell, instead of being forced to commit suicide is given the task to defeat the western allies. I would prefer not to give away the ending of this book, but I will say that this is a real page turner, I couldn't wait to find out how the war would play out. (There are a number of twists and turns to history as the story unfolds). The only reason that this book did not get 5 stars is that at the very end of the book, it was "tie up the loose ends" time. Usually I feel that most books could be written more tightly, however at the end the authors raced to finish it up. It was almost like "Hey we only have 5 pages to wrap this up". This book begs for a sequel. I only hope that it does well enough for the authors to attempt it. I for one will be eagerly waiting!

The authors of this Alternate History have done a pretty fair job of tilling some virgin ground--World War II has not been explored or exploited as the basis of very many books in the AH genre thus far.

Overall the plot seems pretty plausible;the assassination of Adolf Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg and his co-conspirators ends in chaos,leading to Heinrich Himmler becoming the new Fuehrer. At the time (1944) all seems to be lost for Germany;the Allies are bombing the Reich to rubble and both fronts are on the verge of collapse. Heinrich Himmler scores a diplomatic coup by concluding a peace treaty with the Soviet Union,and an injured Field Marshall Rommel is recalled to duty as the commander in the West. Rommel subsequently conducts a brilliant fighting retreat to the "Westwall" or Siegfried line while Adolf Galland,the brilliant General of Fighters, conducts his long planned "grosse schlag" or big blow against the American 8th Air Force with the revolutionary Me 262 jet fighters. The book title "Fox on the Rhine" is the code name for the alternate history version of the Battle of the Bulge led in this instance by Rommel.

Many fictional characters are introduced in the course of action, some of whom are not very believable. Oberst (Colonel) Krueger seems to be a pretty vile individual to be selected by General Galland as a wing commander. Krueger's behavior towards his crew chief borders on idiotic , since the mechanics are what kept the pilots alive in the air through thorough and careful maintenence of the aircraft. On the other hand Feldwebel (sergeant) Karl-Heinz Claussen was a thoroughly likeable sort of fellow.

My overall impression of the book was very favorable,although I was somewhat let down by the ending. It seemed to me that the failure of the great Ardennes offensive was based on an somewhat improbable scenario in Dinant, and based on all the previous actions taken by Rommel this ending would not have occurred.

On the negative side , the book needed a lot more thorough job of proofreading. Several small nitpicking errors were carried through the entire book; i.e. there is no "d" in Messerschmitt! Captains in the S.S. are not "Hauptmann" but "Obersturmfuehrer";and tanks are not steered by steering wheels,although half tracks are.

A better knowledge of German and German forms of address to superiors (not "Feldmarshall" , but "Herr General Feldmarshall") would have helped smooth out a few of the rough spots and upgraded this book to "5 stars".In the realization that this was the first AH book attempted by these authors, I look forward to even better efforts in the future.

Wow! It's rare that a long-awaited novel meets my expectations, but Fox on the Rhine not only met them, it smashed them flat beneath the treads of advancing panzers!

The essence of the plot is believable and eminently satisfying. The authors twisted history just a bit to create a compelling tale that takes WWII on an interesting new time-line.

The characters are strong and believable, mostly historical and well researched. The technical military detail is superb. The authors' knowledge of the campaigns, command structures, and military possibilities leaps off of every page. Battles are presented in an exciting, readable manner so they are easily followed and brutally realistic.

I highly recommend Fox on the Rhine to any fan of alternate history or WWII drama. I can't wait to read their next book!

Fox on the Rhine is an enjoyable piece of alternate history based on the supposition that the plot to assasinate Hitler had succeeded. The book is packed with battle scenes and historic figures like Rommel, Himmler, and Patton reacting to the new situation. The book bogs down a little in intrigues between the assasins and the NAZIs. Also one would have really liked to know how the post war world would have looked under the changed circumstances (perhaps in a sequal?). Nevertheless I could hardly put the book down, which for my busy lifestyle is praise indeed.

(...)

'Fox on the Rhine,' by Douglas Niles and Micheal Dobson, is a wonderful story of just how differently World War Two could have turned out if the Army Officers plot had succeeded in killing Adolf Hitler. In 'Fox' Hitler is killed at Rastenberg on July 20th, 1944 and Germany is soon thrown into a sea of chaos. Heinrich Himmler and his SS soon move to gain the loyalty of the army and seek a seperate peace with the Soviets. Once that's accomplished, Himmler appoints Erwin Rommel, 'the Desert Fox,' to command an alternate version of the 'Battle of the Bulge.' While at times Dobson and Niles spend a little too much time showing off the fruits of their research, which is impressive, they do manage to tell a riveting story, and while some aspects of 'Fox' do stretch the reader's believabilty, the story is riveting and builds to an explosive climax. But perhaps the most fun is the simple question that the authors ask and attempt to answer: What would have happened had Erwin Rommel commanded the Ardennes Offensive? A great ride that ranks among the best works of alternate history.

Bottom line: Fox on the Rhine is a darn good summer read. However, the co-author's claim that this book is a work of "alternative history" is stretching the definition of that nebulous term to the breaking point. Rather, Fox on the Rhine is more of a Teutonic fantasy where the mighty Wehrmacht - free of the disastrous meddling of Hitler by a quirk of the author's pen - is free to wreak havoc upon the incompetent Anglo-Americans. In this fantasy world, superior German leadership, technology and fighting ability can unite to reverse the inevitable Allied victory. Bearing in mind that this is a work of fiction, the author's have absorbed enough information about the real Second World War to make their alternative outcome interesting - even gripping at times - but ultimately not very credible. Read this book, enjoy it, then throw it away.

One particularly troubling area I have with the book - aside from the improbable characters and dialogue as mentioned by several other reviewers - is the way that the authors deal with troubling facts of the real world - they just wish them away. A major case in point is the rugged terrain of the Ardennes, which was a crucial impediment to the German 1944 Winter Counteroffensive. In real life, the German armor was very constricted on the small, muddy forest trails and roads and this greatly slowed their advance. In Fox on the Rhine, where the authors imagine a stronger German counterattack with many more divisions, the Germans sail effortlessly across the rugged terrain to seize Bastogne, St Vith and Stavelot in just a couple days. This is absurd. More tanks and better commanders would not have speeded up the German advance one bit. A second fact that the author's conveniently ignore is the remarkable ability of small ad hoc groups of American engineers, anti-aircraft and combat support units to put up credible delaying actions that greatly upset the German timetable. In Fox on the Rhine, other than the author's spotlight unit, the fictional 19th Armored Division, no US units fight well in the Ardennes or inflict serious delay. Taken together, these glaring omissions - terrain and US tenacity - make the German offensive into an almost cartoon adventure, with the Germans effortlessly overrunning big American supply depots (obviously, the Americans were too dumb to even blow them up before losing them). Furthermore, this novel tends to reinforce the Nazi propaganda myth that American forces were helpless without air support and massive logistic support. This is propaganda, not alternate history.

The other major area that is troubling about the book is the near deification of Field Marshal Rommel. In this work, Rommel is presented as a near-paragon: a military genius, a decent man and a German patriot. There is no doubt that Rommel was one of the best German tactical commanders in the Second World War (and outstanding as a junior officer in the First World War), but he was far from perfect even in a military sense. In North Africa, Rommel frequently demonstrated a shocking disregard for logistical realities - such as in his foolish "dash to the wire" in November 1941 - and he could also be very arrogant in dealing with other German commanders. Rommel might have been admired, but he had few friends among his peers. As for patriotism, Rommel was like the rest of the bunch who went along with Hitler when the Fuhrer was on a winning streak, but then rejected him once the specter of defeat appeared. During the six weeks that Rommel commanded German forces in the Normandy campaign, he demonstrated competence but hardly genius. The authors would have the reader believe that Rommel was such a military genius that his mere appearance at the front served to restore shattered morale and give the Wehrmacht a new chance for victory. Yet if Rommel is able to do so much with so little in the retreat across France, why didn't he do a better job containing the Allies in Normandy when he had an even greater edge? The reality that is missing from this fictional work is that individual leadership - no matter how imbued with professional expertise - is no equalizer against overwhelming material odds. Napoleon was also faced with this situation in his last desperate campaign in France in 1814, and his genius was not enough to counterbalance a deteriorating military situation.

Finally, if the authors are going to change events on the German side of the deck, they should allow for a reverse dynamic. A critical omission is the lack of any Allied strategic debate after the unexpected German cease-fire agreement with the Soviets. Instead of including all those useless scenes with Sergeant O'Dell, the authors should have included a scene or two depicting FDR and Churchill discussing policy changes. Rather than see Greece or Norway go to the Soviets, Churchill would almost certainly have pushed for the First Allied Airborne Army to be dropped into either or both of those countries to forestall a Soviet occupation (remember, in this alternative Operation Market-Garden did not occur). If the Germans had abandoned a "stand-or-die" policy in France due to the assassination of Hitler, the Falaise Pocket would probably not have occurred and the consequently stronger German defenses on the West Wall would have induced far greater Allied caution in approaching the German frontier. Under these conditions, a German counterattack would have seemed more credible. It is far less likely that the Allies would have thinned their sector in the Ardennes or failed to maintain a sizeable theater reserve if the Germans had saved so much of their armies from the French campaign. Instead, the authors present a fantasy where the Germans are allowed to "correct" their actual historical mistakes but the Allies are static to the point of wooded-headedness.

I started this book on a flight to Seattle and couldn't put it down. I finished it that night! The "what if Hitler died in the bomb blast" idea has been around but an alternative story that is believable has never been so well done. In addition to those characters who are famous, the authors include many characters, from the battle-shocked American tank commander to the patriotic Luftwaffe pilot, characters who represent those who fought the battles daily for both sides.

And for a change people on both sides are fairly intelligent. Of course there are the racist Nazi's but the German's aren't portrayed as being all idiots or all racists, who constantly do stupid things.

The military battles are well thought out, both in terms of strategy and tactics (I don't like authors of military books who really have no grasp of strategy or tactics). However it is the politics that is really the core of the book, and after all that is what war is really about - the success or failure of politics.

My only complaint is that although the book ends, the story doesn't which means I have to wait a year or so to find out what happens next.

If you like authors like W.E.B. Griffen, Stephen Coonts and Harold W. Coyle, you will love this book.

The authors of this book have crafted an enjoyable and believable piece of fiction around interesting and exciting events. While some of the circumstances do require some suspension of disbelief, that's certainly par for the course with Alternate History writing. Anyone looking for a good read with some well-thought-out twists will do well to pick up this book. The authors are to be congratulated.

As a coauthor of counterfactual history, I am equally interested in both the idea and the writing. Niles and Dobson come through on both counts.

At its premise, this book takes that the effort to kill Hitler in July 1944 succeeds but leads Himmler to take power and gamble on making peace with the Soviet Union. His temptation for Stalin is knowledge of the vengeance weapons and the technology to make the Soviet Union potentially dominant against the Western Allies.

That truce (and both sides know it is a truce not a peace) allows Germany to focus on defeating the Anglo-American armies.

They then posit that Himmler would have relied on competent military leaders like Rommel, Guderian and Galland and amassed German military power more intelligently than Hitler allowed.

The book evolves in a very engaging and satisfying way and I recommend it highly for anyone interested in how a military campaign could unfold and how strategic change could lead to different developments.

Too many otherwise intelligent people think history is synonymous with destiny. Even some historians think it's their job to explain the inevitable. The result makes for insipid reading and bad history. In fact, the present is contingent on a tangled web of factors and conditions, many only dimly perceived. To fully appreciate history requires a lively awareness of how a seemingly trivial incident at a decisive time and place might have turned the world upside down, for better or worse.

On the other side, the overly literal-minded believe alternate history is a waste of time because it deals with ahistorical questions: What if Peter the Great had had access to railroads? What might Napoleon have achieved with tanks? True, a popular strain of anachronism runs through the alternate history genre. Further, as Tony Judt has observed, a counterfactual speculation (i.e., alternate history) must take the broader context into account. To its credit, Fox provides a fascinating take on a world turned almost upside down while avoiding anachronism by means of an exceptionally well-thought out political scenario that might satisfy even Mr. Judt.

That scenario is based on two questions: If the July 20 bomb plot had succeeded, what effects might Hitler's death have had on Nazi Germany? And, with Hitler dead might Germany have had a fighting chance of ending the war on favorable terms? Fox works out plausible and highly entertaining answers to those questions mainly through the eyes of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (the Fox of the title) and the top officers of an American armored division in France. The characters, historical and fictional alike, are developed with unusual sensitivity and depth. I really came to care about all of them, even the bad guys. Echoing Herman Wouk's "Winds of War," Fox uses exceprts from an imaginary postwar history to provide perspective and analysis. Although I admired Fox's respect for history and attention to the political background, my main interest was in the action. As one might expect, the action is mainly land warfare. Although a tad brief, I found the battles enjoyable and tactically sound.

On the negative side, Fox gives little consideration to the conflict as a world war and not just a duel between the United States and Germany. Also, fewer of the maudlin letters from the B-24 waist gunner to his mother would have made for a better book. But, these are quibbles. All in all, Fox is a first-class work of alternate history. I recommend it without hesitation to anyone with the slightest interest in history, World War II, and what-might-have-been.