Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front Universe
May 11, 2017 17:05:36 GMT
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Post by lordroel on May 11, 2017 17:05:36 GMT
Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front universe
The Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front is a series of two alternate history novels written in the period of 2000 to 2003 by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson beginning with a course of events over late 1944 that resulted from Adolf Hitler's death in the July 20th plot and Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel's survival of the crackdown.
Book I plot summary (Fox on the Rhine)
The first book (Fox on the Rhine) 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.
Book II plot summary (Fox at the Front)
The second book (Fox at the Front) picks up on December 27, 1944, just minutes after the climax to Fox on the Rhine. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has introduced himself to George Patton and offers to surrender Army Group B to him. Both generals agree that the Soviet Union is a greater threat than all of the German forces under Heinrich Himmler, who has considered him a traitor. Rommel instructs Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army and Heinz Guderian's Sixth Panzer Army to surrender their units at the first Allied unit they encounter. However, the large concentration of Waffen-SS forces in the Sixth Panzer Army makes Himmler order Jochen Peiper to take over the unit at its headquarters in Namur, which kills Heinz Guderian in the process, and to counterattack the Allies. After a US infantry force, which was sent to accept Guderian's surrender, is ambushed, Peiper marshals a small kampfgruppe from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler to attack Rommel's Dinant headquarters, but he is forced to withdraw by heavy US and German resistance. He also collects wounded German forces along the way during the trip back to the Rhine. Patton's liberation of Bastogne and the cooperation of Rommel's forces allows Third Army to race to the Rhine faster than the rest of the Allies by early January 1945. It captures a bridge in Koblenz and tries to cut off as many SS units as they can.
Some SS forces, including Peiper, make it across the Rhine. After he arrives in Berlin, Himmler puts Peiper in charge of the Das Reich division.
Rommel also faces tension on the German side, as he is being eyed to head the government-in-exile of the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR), but he decides to stay firm and commands the Wehrmacht survivors from Army Group B, now called the German Republican Army (GRA). Having crossed the Rhine, the GRA and the Third Army keep pushing deep into the interior. All the while, Himmler orders Field Marshal Walter Model to reassign all Wehrmacht officers randomly to prevent any conspiracies to defect, especially after US forces co-ordinate with General Kurt Student in overseeing the surrender of Army Group H in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union resumes its offensive across Poland, as Stalin assigns the political officer Alexis Krigoff to keep tabs on the attack. The zampolit also reports to the NKVD about generals who are too cautious in their attacks. Das Reich and the Sixth Panzer Army are sent to the Eastwall, a copy of the Westwall, to help to defend the front.
On February 18, a reconnaissance team from the US 19th Armored Division ambushes a train leaving of Ettersburg. Upon derailing the train, the group discovers thousands of corpses and few survivors for whom they provide medical assistance. Rommel is alerted and goes down to Ettersburg to see the situation. He discovers that the train came from the Buchenwald concentration camp and organises an assault under the cover of a snowstorm, with German troops in the lead. The camp is liberated, and the prisoners are taken care of by Allied medical units. Rommel is horrified at the depths to which the Nazi Party reached in Germany's name, and he nearly kills some camp guards in anger. Although he leads the way in the cleanup, the Allied and the GDR leaderships convince Rommel to let the proper medical authorities handle the workload at Buchenwald and to concentrate on capturing Berlin, ahead of the Soviets, who have stumbled upon the Auschwitz camp as well.
On March 13, while the Sixth Panzer Army tries to blunt the Soviet advance, the Allies execute Operation Eclipse, an airborne drop and ground assault on Berlin, where Dietrich surrenders all German forces in the city. A US commando raid also captures Himmler as he tries to escape to Czechoslovakia in a convoy. Enraged at having been beaten to Berlin, Stalin orders Georgy Zhukov to encircle the capital by sending his forces to the Elbe and by cutting off Third Army and the GRA from the rest of the Allied forces, which are still to the west. Zhukov also uses the opportunity to cripple the GRA forces in the northern outskirts heavily while the encirclement continues. The Allied troops in the city are ordered not to attack the Soviets for fear that they will become provoked to unleash their firepower on Berlin. Peiper, who was cut off during the retreat of Das Reich' from Kustrin, is captured and sent to a re-education camp in Siberia.
Over the next few months, the Allies carry out a massive airlift operation into Berlin, which provides reinforcements and supplies while evacuating civilians. The Soviets also use the time to bring more ground forces into the blockade.
The uneasy calm is broken on July 1, when a US transport crashing on the Soviet lines after a major dogfight is interpreted on the ground as an Allied air attack. The Soviets attack all points throughout the blockade, with the main thrust being directed against the 19th Armored Division at Potsdam. However, Zhukov discovers that Krigoff was behind the assumption since he convinced the commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army to press the attack with the intent of capturing Gatow and Tempelhof airports. The attack bogs down because of Allied airstrikes, but Patton believes that the next Soviet attack will break through the US lines. The determined Soviet assault forces the Manhattan Project to bring the atomic bomb, which was supposed to be used for the Trinity test, to be deployed in Berlin.
On the morning of July 8, General Groves oversees the drop of the Fat Man bomb aboard the Enola Gay with the Soviet artillery and armored concentration in Potsdam as the target. Although there are persistent doubts as to whether the bomb will work, the explosion erases them altogether as it obliterates Potsdam, where Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev's headquarters is located. The shock value from the event also forces the other Soviet attacks to stop.
In the aftermath of the bombing, Stalin agrees to withdraw all Red Army forces to the Polish side of the Oder River but leaves behind a small force on the German side to fortify the area. The British spy Kim Philby, who has spent the past few months digging for information on the atomic bomb, is killed by British intelligence as he attempts to alert the Soviets that the Berlin bomb was the only working copy; he was tricked by a fake stockpile several days earlier. Krigoff, who was sent to Lubyanka Prison after the siege, narrates his part of the story to Stalin before he is killed in his cell. The United Nations also convenes a war crimes tribunal to try all Nazis, but Himmler does not make it to the courtroom, as the US soldiers who discovered Buchenwald leave him to die in a camp with Jews and other inmates.
Europe at the end of the Berlin War
With the Berlin War being over, a uneasy peace settled down over Europe, new borders had been drawn, Prussia part of Germany was now part of Poland, Czechoslovakia was partitioned into two halve, a democratic in the west called the Czech Republic and in the east a communists country called the Peoples Republic of Slovakia which over time would become one of the staunchest communists countries in the world. Greece that was part of the German-Soviet Armistice of 1944 and as a result became under Soviet influence became a country called the Greece People's Republic where democratic demonstrations where ruthlessly crushed and where the Soviet set up a major Soviet Naval base, Norway another country that was part of the German-Soviet Armistice of 1944 was more lucky despite Soviet attempts by the Soviet Union to create a true communists country, this was mainly due to geography and the proximity of the United Kingdom, through Norway wa forced to accept a communists government it did mange to retain a level of independence which was unknown in the Soviet bloc.
The Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front is a series of two alternate history novels written in the period of 2000 to 2003 by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson beginning with a course of events over late 1944 that resulted from Adolf Hitler's death in the July 20th plot and Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel's survival of the crackdown.
Book I plot summary (Fox on the Rhine)
The first book (Fox on the Rhine) 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.
Book II plot summary (Fox at the Front)
The second book (Fox at the Front) picks up on December 27, 1944, just minutes after the climax to Fox on the Rhine. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel has introduced himself to George Patton and offers to surrender Army Group B to him. Both generals agree that the Soviet Union is a greater threat than all of the German forces under Heinrich Himmler, who has considered him a traitor. Rommel instructs Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army and Heinz Guderian's Sixth Panzer Army to surrender their units at the first Allied unit they encounter. However, the large concentration of Waffen-SS forces in the Sixth Panzer Army makes Himmler order Jochen Peiper to take over the unit at its headquarters in Namur, which kills Heinz Guderian in the process, and to counterattack the Allies. After a US infantry force, which was sent to accept Guderian's surrender, is ambushed, Peiper marshals a small kampfgruppe from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler to attack Rommel's Dinant headquarters, but he is forced to withdraw by heavy US and German resistance. He also collects wounded German forces along the way during the trip back to the Rhine. Patton's liberation of Bastogne and the cooperation of Rommel's forces allows Third Army to race to the Rhine faster than the rest of the Allies by early January 1945. It captures a bridge in Koblenz and tries to cut off as many SS units as they can.
Some SS forces, including Peiper, make it across the Rhine. After he arrives in Berlin, Himmler puts Peiper in charge of the Das Reich division.
Rommel also faces tension on the German side, as he is being eyed to head the government-in-exile of the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR), but he decides to stay firm and commands the Wehrmacht survivors from Army Group B, now called the German Republican Army (GRA). Having crossed the Rhine, the GRA and the Third Army keep pushing deep into the interior. All the while, Himmler orders Field Marshal Walter Model to reassign all Wehrmacht officers randomly to prevent any conspiracies to defect, especially after US forces co-ordinate with General Kurt Student in overseeing the surrender of Army Group H in Frankfurt.
Meanwhile, on the Eastern Front, the Soviet Union resumes its offensive across Poland, as Stalin assigns the political officer Alexis Krigoff to keep tabs on the attack. The zampolit also reports to the NKVD about generals who are too cautious in their attacks. Das Reich and the Sixth Panzer Army are sent to the Eastwall, a copy of the Westwall, to help to defend the front.
On February 18, a reconnaissance team from the US 19th Armored Division ambushes a train leaving of Ettersburg. Upon derailing the train, the group discovers thousands of corpses and few survivors for whom they provide medical assistance. Rommel is alerted and goes down to Ettersburg to see the situation. He discovers that the train came from the Buchenwald concentration camp and organises an assault under the cover of a snowstorm, with German troops in the lead. The camp is liberated, and the prisoners are taken care of by Allied medical units. Rommel is horrified at the depths to which the Nazi Party reached in Germany's name, and he nearly kills some camp guards in anger. Although he leads the way in the cleanup, the Allied and the GDR leaderships convince Rommel to let the proper medical authorities handle the workload at Buchenwald and to concentrate on capturing Berlin, ahead of the Soviets, who have stumbled upon the Auschwitz camp as well.
On March 13, while the Sixth Panzer Army tries to blunt the Soviet advance, the Allies execute Operation Eclipse, an airborne drop and ground assault on Berlin, where Dietrich surrenders all German forces in the city. A US commando raid also captures Himmler as he tries to escape to Czechoslovakia in a convoy. Enraged at having been beaten to Berlin, Stalin orders Georgy Zhukov to encircle the capital by sending his forces to the Elbe and by cutting off Third Army and the GRA from the rest of the Allied forces, which are still to the west. Zhukov also uses the opportunity to cripple the GRA forces in the northern outskirts heavily while the encirclement continues. The Allied troops in the city are ordered not to attack the Soviets for fear that they will become provoked to unleash their firepower on Berlin. Peiper, who was cut off during the retreat of Das Reich' from Kustrin, is captured and sent to a re-education camp in Siberia.
Over the next few months, the Allies carry out a massive airlift operation into Berlin, which provides reinforcements and supplies while evacuating civilians. The Soviets also use the time to bring more ground forces into the blockade.
The uneasy calm is broken on July 1, when a US transport crashing on the Soviet lines after a major dogfight is interpreted on the ground as an Allied air attack. The Soviets attack all points throughout the blockade, with the main thrust being directed against the 19th Armored Division at Potsdam. However, Zhukov discovers that Krigoff was behind the assumption since he convinced the commander of the 2nd Guards Tank Army to press the attack with the intent of capturing Gatow and Tempelhof airports. The attack bogs down because of Allied airstrikes, but Patton believes that the next Soviet attack will break through the US lines. The determined Soviet assault forces the Manhattan Project to bring the atomic bomb, which was supposed to be used for the Trinity test, to be deployed in Berlin.
On the morning of July 8, General Groves oversees the drop of the Fat Man bomb aboard the Enola Gay with the Soviet artillery and armored concentration in Potsdam as the target. Although there are persistent doubts as to whether the bomb will work, the explosion erases them altogether as it obliterates Potsdam, where Zhukov and Marshal Ivan Konev's headquarters is located. The shock value from the event also forces the other Soviet attacks to stop.
In the aftermath of the bombing, Stalin agrees to withdraw all Red Army forces to the Polish side of the Oder River but leaves behind a small force on the German side to fortify the area. The British spy Kim Philby, who has spent the past few months digging for information on the atomic bomb, is killed by British intelligence as he attempts to alert the Soviets that the Berlin bomb was the only working copy; he was tricked by a fake stockpile several days earlier. Krigoff, who was sent to Lubyanka Prison after the siege, narrates his part of the story to Stalin before he is killed in his cell. The United Nations also convenes a war crimes tribunal to try all Nazis, but Himmler does not make it to the courtroom, as the US soldiers who discovered Buchenwald leave him to die in a camp with Jews and other inmates.
Europe at the end of the Berlin War
With the Berlin War being over, a uneasy peace settled down over Europe, new borders had been drawn, Prussia part of Germany was now part of Poland, Czechoslovakia was partitioned into two halve, a democratic in the west called the Czech Republic and in the east a communists country called the Peoples Republic of Slovakia which over time would become one of the staunchest communists countries in the world. Greece that was part of the German-Soviet Armistice of 1944 and as a result became under Soviet influence became a country called the Greece People's Republic where democratic demonstrations where ruthlessly crushed and where the Soviet set up a major Soviet Naval base, Norway another country that was part of the German-Soviet Armistice of 1944 was more lucky despite Soviet attempts by the Soviet Union to create a true communists country, this was mainly due to geography and the proximity of the United Kingdom, through Norway wa forced to accept a communists government it did mange to retain a level of independence which was unknown in the Soviet bloc.
