Himmler's War

Conroy has this annoying habit of selecting potentially great plot lines then boring the reader to death. Many have note that his characters are simply caricatures - barbaric Bolsheviks, cruel Nazis, brave English, etc The dialogues and in particular the military ones come off as "novel talk" - what folks say in books and not in real life. Two huge problems: logic and those forgettable characters.Historically, it's a huge mess. Japan never considered invading the USSR, Germany was not close to a bomb, etc. Over and over Conroy has Nazi Germany defeating the UK and the USSR...then losing the war! The Russians lose their entire leadership and recover in Siberia? It makes no sense in any universe. Himmler suspends the "Final Solution" yet alienates non-Russians within the USSR? Characters are literally interchangeable / forgettable. I began skipping whole sections filled with trite and unrelated drivel like bad romances, political jabber and the interminable gushing of weapon factoids and troop movements. And despite vast differences in history, it all comes out the same! My Grade - D

So I like to read alternative history novels from time to time, because if they are well written and the history is well researched; it makes for a fun game of "what if" to be played out in my mind.The gimmick here is that Hitler is killed by an errant stick of bombs from a B-17. The "what-if" question is that how would the war in Europe have progressed if Hitler wasn't making poor decisions about army movements and how the army should fight, let alone what weapons the German's should produce.The book starts only a few weeks after D-Day and follows two main characters, one is a USAAF pilot who is afraid to fly and the other is a senior German military officer who works on the OKB (the German equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). When Hitler is killed, Heinrich Himmler takes over as leader of Nazi Germany. He gives some concessions to the OKB about military troops, receives peace with Stalin and give the German Army free reign to make the war in France harder to win compared to the actual rout it was by the end of 1944. There are some historical inaccuracies, such as the use of a nuclear weapon early on by Germans against one of the allied nations. However, for the most part the story seems to roll well based on what most historians studying the battle for the liberation of France expected if the Germans fought competently. The biggest difficulty for me in reading this book though was the number of minor characters that fleshed out some of the events that were to occur off stage from what the main characters were experiencing. It was difficult without a character bill to keep everyone straight. Additionally, there seemed to me more sex scenes in this book than I expected. Nothing pornographic, but some serious purple prose was inserted when one of the main characters ran across his love interest in some of the most unusual times. Having read a few of Conroy's other books, I half expected this but this time it almost seemed as if instead of a ton of action with a little bit of romance, the formula was reversed and there was a little bit of action with a ton of romance. I half expected to see one of the minor or even major characters engage in a purple prose filled sex scene right in the middle of one of the major set piece battles during this book. That was a major distraction to the flow of the story.Realistically, most of Conroy's books could be taken apart by a serious historical student. But for a trashy read on an airplane or on the beach or at lunch while at work and you don't want something thick. Well then this is decent, not four or five stars; but 3 stars and even at points that is reaching for it by that moment you finish the book and think it over in your mind.

In the last year or so of the war in Europe, the aliies best friend was Adolf Hitler. His incompetent handling of the war really helped out the allies. Without him, the war would have been much more difficult. Main flaw in this book was the part about the German atomic bomb. They weren't even started on the process of making an A bomb. It took the industrial might of the US 3 years to produce one. There is no way a heavily bombed Germany could have created one in the last year of the war.

First off I enjoy alternate history novels like this. With that said I enjoy history and have an idea of how things might have gone. Mr. Conroy's novels are good, well paced & pretty well thought out. He doesn't have the detail of a Harry Turtledove but for a light read he's good. I think the way the German generals would have taken over the war was spot on, especially at the time of Hitler's death. His Himmler mostly stepped out of the way to let them get the job done (even if he would have purged them later). I disagree with a couple of things though. The Norton bomb sight was better than Mr. Conroy described. It was complicated to operate but was the best sight available (on either side) at the time. Also the crew of Mother's Milk would NOT have been allowed to return to combat in Germany or anywhere near it. They would have been sent to the Pacific arena because of exactly what happened to the co-pilot. If you like alternate history give this a read.

Robert Conroy shouldn't write a novel about WWII if he is so uninformed. The book completely ignores Operation Bagration, a huge offensive which destroyed Army Group Center, a loss for the Germans more horrific than Stalingrad. The offensive was timed to occur on June 22, 1944 on the anniversary of Barbarossa. The Russians were winning, and they wouldn't have cancelled it even if Rommel took over instead of Himmler. The concept of the novel is amateurish at best. There are many alternate history novels available, and any of them would be better than Himmler's War.

I just bought this because it didn't show up as a book I purchased for my kindle, which I was using in 2008 even. Well, I had read it in 2011 when it came out, in book form, as it had not translated to kindle then. So, I bought the book twice. Still, happy I did. Well worth the money and fully enjoyed (again).As to some of the one star reviews which I just find overly picky. ALL fiction is fiction and all fiction takes poetic license so to speak. Yes there are inconsistencies with history, yes there is some American jingoism, but cool it people and enjoy an incredibly wonderful ride into "what if".

The initial idea of Hitler being killed and the German army being allowed to fight the kind of war they wanted initially appealed to me. However, it's just another book about how the Yanks won the war all by themselves, totally forgetting everything done by everyone else during the war. Oh, the Russians get quite a lot of a look in but as a whole any country or character that isn't American is treated in a typically stereotypical fashion and are portrayed as being of no use militarily. I think that American authors of this genre really ought to read some proper history on the period they're writing about - just maybe one of them may click onto the fact that a hell of a lot had been achieved in the three years before they even appeared on the scene and a hell of a lot was accomplished successfully by forces that weren't American after they finally arrived late on the scene. If this were done then the resulting books would be more balanced and less bloody insulting to the memory of the men and women from all the other countries involved who gave their all to overthrow the Nazi regime.

I have enjoyed many of Conroy's works and was looking forward to this one, but for those who read his last one - 1945 Red Inferno with the Western Allies going to war with Stalin's Soviet Union, you will find this one similar with the Americans holding centre stage and the British and French relegated to limited supporting roles in the war. I dont remember the others - Poles, Canadians, Dutch, Belgians, Czechs, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans, etc being mentioned at all sadly.SPOILER ALERT -A great concept overall, that Hitler is killed in June 1944 and Himmler takes control and in this story makes more rational decisions about the deployment of the Army letting the actual Generals fight the war- for example abandoning Norway, Italy and the Courland peninsula so as to straighten and strengthen the main defence lines. A truce with USSR seemed feasible in this story.However what is annoying is many mistakes like saying the British 1st Airborne dropped in to Normandy when it was the 6th, many typos but worst of all I felt was showing how the British were clamouring for peace and an end to the war just because Hitler was dead, and with the French divided again (in this story and in the last one) between De Gaulle supporters and Communists the Americans are the main backbone and advocate to continue the war against Nazi Germany! I found this very hard to accept since historically the Americans only joined the war in 1941 after they were attacked by the Japanese and then Hitlers declaration of war on them yet now they and not the British who had been fighting since 1939 want to fight on, and as I said above seem to do all the work.The inclusion of a German Nuclear weapon team was interesting and key to the plot for a while but not based on reality. History tells us that the Germans were decades behind the Western Allies especially as they had forced/scared off many key German Jewish scientists.I felt too that could have been more actual battle scenes and fighting. We do get some and glimpses of others but its mainly conversations and some unusual sex scenes thrown in.Better than many of Turtledove's efforts however but not as good as the great S M Stirling's books.I would recommend two other great similar stories - Colin Gee's Red Gambit series and Seelowe Nord by Andy Johnson. The Germans invade England in 1940 but on the Yorkshire coast flanking the main defences in south east England, both very interesting and entertaining and much better than Himmlers war.So, a good idea with some good moments but a missed chance again from a writer who constantly returns to the theme that the Americans won World War 2 by themselves in the alternative worlds, and probably in history too. A bit disappointing overall.

Very disappointed with this. Normally Conroy at least gets his "real" history right, and is good on things like weapons and army dispositions etc. This was very slapdash, lots of technical errors that annoyed the history nerd in me before before I even got to the biggest problem, a painfully thin plot. Apart from a slight diversion into the Nazis getting nuclear weapons ahead of the Americans (and we know that from a divergence with "real" history of mid-1944 that was simply impossible), but which actually had no bearing on the main plot of the story anyway, there was nothing surprising or interesting about the story, which was 90% filler to get to one main battle, and even that wasn't that interesting once we got to it.I also found the critique of Montgomery taken wholesale from the Steven Ambrose school of anti-English sentiment a bit irritating, but accept this book is primarily designed to appeal to the US market, so I made allowances, but I just thought it was a lazy way to make the whole thing US-centric.I've enjoyed (and reviewed) other Robert Conroy books in the past, but I'm afraid I can't give this a recommendation at all.

Having read some of the reviews for this paperback I nevertheless decided to buy Himmler's War. I actually found it to be a rather good read and the alternative WW2 held up rather well.It did delve into the various war attitudes of the British,French and indeed Americans whilst covering in depth Stalin's view on life. On balance, Mr Conroy covered the varying attitudes to the war well. Some regarded Churchill as a Warmonger for example whilst others considered him a hero. It does focus on the American Forces but then so does all of Hollywood ! Would Stalin have sold war equipment to Himmler? Probably yes. Overall I enjoyed the book as a good read.

I have enjoyed several books by this author. I read the reviews, honestly should have paid more attention. A bad rehash of his other works. Skorzeny also had hopes to hide in the Irish Free State, one of several bolt holes.