Plot summary
The book begins on July 20, 1944, when Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg successfully bombs the Wolfsschanze during a military conference and later executes Operation Valkyrie in Berlin. However, his decision to signal Adolf Hitler's death to other conspirators by code buys enough time for SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to launch his own countercoup, Operation Reichssturm. While the Allies work to break out of Normandy through Operation Cobra, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel recovers from the injuries that he suffered during a real-life strafing run three days before the Stauffenberg coup. Himmler appoints him as commander of all German forces in Western Europe, under the watch from the SS, after Field Marshal Günther von Kluge dies in an air attack. He also believes that Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel's mention of Rommel as a possible conspirator holds no weight.
Back in Berlin, Himmler takes charge of the German government and sends Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Wehrmacht Colonel Gunther von Reinhardt to negotiate a peace treaty with the Soviet Union. The plan, Operation Carousel, calls for Germany to shift troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front and to leave Eastern Europe and Scandinavia to the Soviets. The Nazis also agree to share missile technology with Moscow. The sudden implementation of the treaty angers the Allies, who promptly shift naval forces from the Pacific to the European Theater of Operations. Meanwhile, Rommel organizes a counterattack at Abbeville against the American 19th Armored Division by using units recovered from the Normandy front. He also orders the 19th Army to evacuate southern France ahead of Operation Dragoon and regroup at the Westwall.
Having identified all of the surviving July 20 conspirators, Himmler orders the SS to kill them, in some instances by posing as British Commandos. Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland is assigned to spearhead the development of the Me 262 fighter. Because of his concern for the troops, Rommel disagrees with Himmler about holding Metz as a strongpoint against the Allies. Himmler responds by sending SS troopers disguised as US soldiers to ambush a combat unit Rommel withdraws from the city.
Galland's efforts with the fighter program results in the mobilization of all surviving Luftwaffe units in a co-ordinated assault against an Allied bomber raid of almost 2,600 aircraft in November 1944. The attack so severely cripples the bomber force that the Allies are forced to suspend the bombing campaign of Germany. The postponement buys Rommel more time to boost his forces for a major offensive through the Ardennes. Although the operation is codenamed Wacht Am Rhein, von Reinhardt successfully proposes a change to Fuchs Am Rhein (Fox on the Rhine) to emphasize Rommel's role as the leader of the offensive. Heinz Guderian is also assigned to lead one of the two panzerarmees to be used in the operation, which aims to reach Antwerp.
Like the real-life Battle of the Bulge, the operation begins on the night of December 16, 1944. The capture of a major fuel dump at Stavelot allows the German forces to extend their advance much further than in the actual offensive, and they capture a bridge in Dinant to keep the momentum going. Field Marshal Montgomery, who successfully reinforced 21st Army Group's side of the Meuse River against a German crossing, is killed when German forces bombard his command post in Waterloo. The Germans also capture Bastogne.
Third Army commander General George Patton assigns the 19th Armored Division to counterattack against the Germans at Dinant and to destroy the bridges. The sudden appearance of the US forces prompts Rommel to send one division, which has already crossed back to Dinant, and to hold it with the Panzer Lehr Division, coming from the east. However, the Allies launch heavy air attacks against the Germans. The 19th Armored Division breaks through and destroys the bridges on December 26. Left without any option to refuel, all Wehrmacht units that have crossed the Meuse, Rommel decides to surrender Army Group B to Patton. An SS general tries to kill Rommel as he prepares to meet Patton, but one of the field marshal's assistants stops the assassin in time. Himmler sees the surrender as an opening for the SS to consolidate its grip on all surviving Wehrmacht units, and Joseph Stalin is pleased with the opportunity for a new attack since the Eastern Front is now almost clear of German forces.
Subplots
Other subplots in the novel include the adventures of a USAAF B-24 Liberator aircrew (explained through a crewmember's letters to his mother), a German-American US Army officer doing intelligence work, a Panther tank commander who eventually becomes Rommel's personal driver, an Associated Press reporter yearning for a position as field correspondent, and some officers in the US 19th Armored Division's Combat Command. A more general explanation of the story (and other in-universe events) is written in the novel through excerpts from a fictional history book, War's Final Fury by Professor Jared Gruenwald.
Claus von Stauffenberg was a German army officer who is best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair.
The 20 July plot was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the chancellor and leader of Nazi Germany, and subsequently overthrow the Nazi regime on 20 July 1944. The plotters were part of the German resistance, mainly composed of Wehrmacht officers. The leader of the conspiracy, Claus von Stauffenberg, planned to kill Hitler by detonating an explosive hidden in a briefcase. However, due to the location of the bomb at the time of detonation, the blast only dealt Hitler minor injuries. The planners' subsequent coup attempt also failed and resulted in a purge of the Wehrmacht.
Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was a German Generalfeldmarschall in the Heer (Army) of Nazi Germany during World War II. Born into a Prussian family with a long military tradition, von Rundstedt entered the Prussian Army in 1892. During World War I, he served mainly as a staff officer. In the interwar period, he continued his military career, reaching the rank of Colonel General before retiring in 1938.
Job Wilhelm Georg Erdmann Erwin von Witzleben was a German Generalfeldmarschall in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. A leading conspirator in the 20 July plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was designated to become Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht in a post-Nazi regime had the plot succeeded.
The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Italian front is considered a separate but related theatre. The Western Front's 1944–1945 phase was officially deemed the European Theater by the United States, whereas Italy fell under the Mediterranean Theater along with North Africa. The Western Front was marked by two phases of large-scale combat operations. The first phase saw the capitulation of Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France during May and June 1940 after their defeat in the Low Countries and the northern half of France, and continued into an air war between Germany and Britain that climaxed with the Battle of Britain. The second phase consisted of large-scale ground combat, which began in June 1944 with the Allied landings in Normandy and continued until the defeat of Germany in May 1945 with its invasion.
Operation Valkyrie was a German World War II emergency continuity of government operations plan issued to the Territorial Reserve Army of Germany to execute and implement in the event of a general breakdown in civil order of the nation. Failure of the government to maintain control of civil affairs might have been caused by the Allied bombing of German cities, or uprising of the millions of foreign forced labourers working in German factories.
Günther Adolf Ferdinand von Kluge was a German Generalfeldmarschall during World War II who held commands on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. He commanded the 4th Army of the Wehrmacht during the invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Battle of France in 1940, earning a promotion to Generalfeldmarschall. Kluge went on to command the 4th Army in Operation Barbarossa and the Battle for Moscow in 1941.
Carl-Heinrich Rudolf Wilhelm von Stülpnagel was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II who was an army level commander. While serving as military commander of German-occupied France and as commander of the 17th Army in the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. Stülpnagel participated in German war crimes, including authorising reprisal operations against civilian population and cooperating with the Einsatzgruppen in their mass murder of Jews. He was a member of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, being in charge of the conspirators' actions in France. After the failure of the plot, he was recalled to Berlin and attempted to commit suicide en route, but failed. Tried on 30 August 1944, he was convicted of treason and executed on the same day.
The Schwarze Kapelle was a term used by the Gestapo to refer to a group of conspirators in Nazi Germany, including many senior officers in the Wehrmacht, who plotted to overthrow Adolf Hitler. Unlike the Rote Kapelle, the name given by the Gestapo to the Soviet spy network in the Third Reich, many members of the Black Orchestra were of aristocratic background, felt contempt for the ideology of the Nazi Party, and were politically close to the Western Allies.
Hans Speidel was a German general, who was one of the major military leaders of West Germany during the early Cold War. The first full General in West Germany, he was a principal founder of the Bundeswehr and a major figure in German rearmament, integration into NATO and international negotiations on European and Western defence cooperation in the 1950s. He served as Commander of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe (COMLANDCENT) from 1957 to 1963 and then as President of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs from 1964.
The following events occurred in July 1944:
Operation Spark was the code name for the planned assassination of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler by the anti-Nazi conspiracy of German Army officers and political conservatives, known as the Schwarze Kapelle during World War II. The name was coined by Major General Henning von Tresckow in 1941. He believed that because of Hitler's many successes up to that time, his personal charisma, and the oath of personal loyalty to him sworn by all German army officers, it would be impossible to overthrow Hitler and the Nazis with Hitler still alive. Hitler's death, however, would be a "spark"—a signal that it was time to launch an internal coup d'état to overthrow the Nazi regime and end the war.
The Flensburg Government, also known as the Flensburg Cabinet, the Dönitz Government, or the Schwerin von Krosigk Cabinet, was the rump government of Nazi Germany during a period of three weeks around the end of World War II in Europe. The government was formed following the suicide of Adolf Hitler on 30 April 1945 during the Battle of Berlin. It was headed by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reichspräsident and Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk as the Leading Minister. The administration was referred to as the "Flensburg Government" because Dönitz's command had relocated to Flensburg in northern Germany near the Danish border on 3 May 1945. The sports school at the Mürwik naval academy was used as the government headquarters.
Designated Targets is a science fiction novel by Australian writer John Birmingham, the second volume of his alternate history Axis of Time trilogy.
Friedrich Karl Albert Dollmann was a German general during World War II who commanded the 7th Army during the Invasion of France and the early phases of the Allied invasion of Normandy until his death in June 1944.
Wilhelm Emanuel Burgdorf was a German general during World War II who served as a commander of the 529th Infantry Regiment and staff officer in the German Army. In October 1944, Burgdorf assumed the role of the chief of the Army Personnel Office and chief adjutant to Adolf Hitler. In this capacity, he played a key role in the forced suicide of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Burgdorf committed suicide inside the Führerbunker on 2 May 1945 at the conclusion of the Battle of Berlin.
The Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive were the product of a German recruitment effort targeting German males between the ages of 16 and 60, to replace troops lost during the past five months of fighting the Western Allies on the Western Front. Although the Wehrmacht was keeping the Allied forces contained along the Siegfried Line, the campaign had cost the Wehrmacht nearly 750,000 casualties, mostly irreplaceable. However, the rapid advance of the Allied armies in August and September after Operation Overlord had created a supply problem for the Allies. By October, the progress of the Western Allies' three army groups had slowed considerably, allowing the Germans to partly rebuild their strength and prepare for the defense of Germany itself. Adolf Hitler decided that the only way to reverse his fortunes would be to launch a counter-offensive on the Western Front, forcing both the United States and Great Britain to an early peace, and allowing the Wehrmacht to shift its forces to the Eastern Front, where it could defeat the much larger Soviet Red Army.
Joachim Otto August Achatius von Kortzfleisch was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II. As the commander of the Military District III (Berlin), he played a role in the failure of the attempted coup following the 20 July Plot attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, which was led by Kortzfleisch's own distant cousin, Claus von Stauffenberg.
Fox at the Front is a 2003 alternate history novel written by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson. It is a sequel to the 2000 novel Fox on the Rhine.
Events in the year 1944 in Germany.
