 | |
| Author | Robert Conroy |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Christopher Sergio |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history |
| Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | February 23, 2010 |
| Media type | trade paperback |
| Pages | 353 |
| ISBN | 978-0-345-50606-1 |
| 813'.54--dc22 | |
| LC Class | PS3553.O51986R43 2010 |
Red Inferno: 1945 is a 2010 novel written by Robert Conroy, the author of other alternate history novels. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The novel introduces actual historical events happened in our timeline and then tells of the point of divergence before its story begins.
In our timeline, the Allied forces in Europe, under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower, halted all further advance into Nazi Germany in April 1945 at the Elbe River while the Red Army battled the surviving German divisions on its way to Berlin.
However, in the alternative timeline, instead of halting the Allied advance into Germany, US President Harry S. Truman authorizes the US Army to continue across the Elbe and to head for Berlin to bring a quick end to the war to guarantee the West's share of the to-be-divided German capital with their forces in the city. However, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, despite the agreed terms of dividing Berlin and Germany with the Western Allies, wants to take Berlin for himself on the grounds that the Soviet Union deserves the most to conquer its archenemy's capital after the unparalleled brutality of the Eastern Front. He even goes as far as to order the Red Army to attack any US forces on sight if they ever get near Berlin to intimidate the West into leaving Berlin to the Soviets.
Word of the exchange between the American advance to Berlin and the Soviet forces reaches Moscow and Washington, DC. It was confirmed that the US had crossed the agreed occupation boundaries. Stalin believes that both he and the US had voided the Yalta Agreements and so now the United States and Soviet Union are de facto enemies. Combined with his paranoia that the West wants to take the Soviets' chance of revenge on Germany from him, he refuses to allow it. With the invalidated postwar divide already causing hostilities, he decides to conquer and occupy Germany and all of the rest of Europe while the Soviet Union still has the chance and so he starts another world war.
Eisenhower and the US Army get pushed back across the Elbe and lose thousands of troops. A whole US armored division, along with fleeing German civilians and prisoners-of-war, are cut off from the main force and holed up in Potsdam to which the Soviets lay siege throughout the whole war. Over the course of a few months from late April to August, the Red Army wages a war of attrition as its overwhelming numbers slowly force the Western Allies westward across Germany to the Weser. The Soviets also try to divide the Western Allies by spreading communist influence to the surrounding nations, and they hope to spark revolutions in the Allied to hinder US efforts to hold the Soviets east of the Rhine.
The plans to hinder the US war effort eventually backfire on the Soviets, as Switzerland and Finland cease their neutrality and allow Allied armies to cross their borders to the front lines, which ensures a continuous flow of troops and supplies to the Allied forces. The US Army Air Force also conducts long-range strategic bombing sorties into the Soviet Union, with the introduction of the B-29 Superfortress from the Pacific Theater, which is diverted from its initial targets at Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Kure and Yokosuka naval districts, which has left them relatively intact. They target Soviet fuel and oil production and deprive the Red Army of any means to conduct further offenses. Things also take a drastic turn when the remaining Wehrmacht forces and the former government of Nazi Germany sign an armistice with the Western Allies and agree to fight with them against the Soviets.
The novel ends in the early winter of 1946, with communism collapsing and the other Soviet republics breaking away from the Soviet Union to form their own sovereign nations, similar to today's Commonwealth of Independent States. China suffers from a civil war, as a new communist government seizes power, and America becomes the world's sole nuclear superpower.
All of Europe and Asia is in ruin as the exhausted troops, politicians, prisoners, and civilians of all nations involved in the conflict return home at last. They begin to rebuild their world as they look forward to an uncertain but hopeful future.
The Potsdam Agreement was the August 1945 agreement between three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its borders, and the entire European Theatre of War territory. It also addressed Germany's demilitarisation, reparations, the prosecution of war criminals and the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from various parts of Europe.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov was a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union. He also served as Chief of the General Staff, Minister of Defence, and was a member of the Presidium of the Communist Party. During World War II, Zhukov oversaw some of the Red Army's most decisive victories.
The final battles of the European Theatre of World War II continued after the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allies, signed by Field marshal Wilhelm Keitel just before midnight on the night of 8 May 1945 in Karlshorst, Berlin and taking effect on 9 May. After German dictator Adolf Hitler's suicide and handing over of power to German Admiral Karl Dönitz in May of 1945, the Soviet troops conquered Berlin and accepted German surrender led by Dönitz. The last battles were fought as part of the Eastern Front which ended in the total surrender of all of Nazi Germany’s remaining armed forces, such as in the Courland Pocket from Army Group North in the Baltics lasting until 10 May 1945 and in Czechoslovakia during the Prague offensive on 11 May 1945.
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of conflict between the European Axis powers against the Soviet Union (USSR), Poland and other Allies, which encompassed Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Northeast Europe (Baltics), and Southeast Europe (Balkans) from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945. It was known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union – and still is in some of its successor states, while almost everywhere else it has been called the Eastern Front. In present-day German and Ukrainian historiography the name German-Soviet War is typically used.
The Western Front was a military theatre of World War II encompassing Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. World War II military engagements in Southern Europe and elsewhere are generally considered as separate theatres. 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.
The German Instrument of Surrender was the legal document that effected the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and ended World War II in Europe, the signing took place 9 May 1945 at 00:16 local time. The decision to surrender was made public on 8 May 1945. The definitive text was signed in Karlshorst, Berlin, on the night of 8 May 1945 by representatives of the three armed services of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) and the Allied Expeditionary Force together with the Supreme High Command of the Soviet Red Army, with further French and US representatives signing as witnesses.
The Prague offensive was the last major military operation of World War II in Europe. The offensive was fought on the Eastern Front from 6 May to 11 May 1945. Fought concurrently with the Prague uprising, the offensive significantly helped the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945. The offensive was one of the last engagements of World War II in Europe and continued after Nazi Germany's unconditional capitulation on 8/9 May.
The Race to Berlin was a competition between Soviet Marshals Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev to be the first to enter Berlin during the final months of World War II in Europe.
The Allies were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Its principal members by 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China.
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The Western Allied invasion of Germany was coordinated by the Western Allies during the final months of hostilities in the European theatre of World War II. In preparation for the Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine, a series of offensive operations were designed to seize and capture the east and west bank of the Rhine: Operation Veritable and Operation Grenade in February 1945, and Operation Lumberjack and Operation Undertone in March 1945, these are considered separate from the main invasion operation. The Allied invasion of Germany east of the Rhine started with the Western Allies crossing the river on 22 March 1945 before fanning out and overrunning all of western Germany from the Baltic in the north to the Alpine passes in the south, where they linked up with troops of the U.S. Fifth Army in Italy. Combined with the capture of Berchtesgaden, any hope of Nazi leadership continuing to wage war from a so-called "National redoubt" or escape through the Alps was crushed, shortly followed by unconditional German surrender on 8 May 1945. This is known as the Central Europe Campaign in United States military histories.
Joseph Robert Conroy was an author of alternate history novels.
The Line of Contact marked the farthest advance of American, British, French, and Soviet armies into German controlled territory at the end of World War II in Europe. In general a "line of contact" refers to the demarcation between two or more given armies, whether they are allied or belligerent.
1945 is an alternate history novel by Michigan economics professor Robert Conroy, an author of alternate history novels, such as 1901 and 1862. It was first published in trade paperback and ebook form by Ballantine Books in May 2007. In the novel's point of divergence, the Kyūjō coup overthrew Japanese Emperor Hirohito and so World War II resumed until 1946.
This is a timeline of events that occurred during World War II in 1943.
This is a timeline of events that occurred during 1944 in World War II.
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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 1945 in Germany.
1920: America's Great War is an alternate history novel by the Michigan economics professor Robert Conroy. It was first published as an ebook by Baen Books in November 2013. A hardcover edition followed in December of the same year and then a paperback edition in March 2015. The novel depicts a fictional world in which Imperial Germany had emerged victorious early in World War I and launches a surprise invasion of the United States in 1920 from Mexico. The book's premise is based on an actual plan that Germany had proposed to Mexico during the war.
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