Verwandte Artikel zu Fox at the Front

Fox at the Front - Hardcover

Niles, Douglas; Dobson, Michael

 
9780765304797: Fox at the Front
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0765304791 ISBN 13: 9780765304797
Verlag: St Martin's Press, 2003

Inhaltsangabe

In the wake of Hitler's death and Rommel's surrender to General Patton, the former foes join forces to take on a new enemy in the East, Stalin, who is preparing to lead the supposedly neutral Soviet Union in a power grab that will jeopardize all Europe, in a speculative thriller about a World War II that could have been. By the authors of Fox on the Rhine 20,000 first printing.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Douglas Niles is a bestselling author of fantasy novels for TSR and an award-winning game designer whose credits include Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising board games. He lives in Wisconsin.

Michael Dobson is also an award-winning game designer. He served as a member of the team that built the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. He lives in Maryland.

Aus dem Klappentext

Praise for Fox on the Rhine

"For people who love history, written by people who know it well"
--Larry Bond

"An intriguing what-if scenario, and one that could have happened ... not since SSGB by Len Deighton have I seen a more credible conclusion to WWII ... the book is a triumph!"
--Walter J. Boyne, bestselling co-author of the The Wild Blue

"A colossal epic of a World War II that might have been...A real page turner!"
-- Frank Chadwick, New York Times bestselling author of The Desert Shield Fact Book

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Fox at the Front
OPERATION VENGEANCE
2 7-3 1 DECEMBER 1944
The leaders of the American economy and the American General Staff have achieved miracles. The organization, training and equipment of the U.S. Army all bear witness to great imagination and foresight, and, above all, to the positive determination of the American people to act in unison and create a war machine with real striking power ...
Technically and strategically the landing in Normandy was a brilliant achievement of the first magnitude. It showed that the Americans had the courage, at any rate in the technical field, to employ a multitude of devices hitherto untried in action. European generals of the old school could certainly have executed the invasion with the forces available, but they could never have prepared it--neither technically, organizationally, nor in the field of training. The functioning of the Allied fighting machine, with all its complexity, surprised even me, and I already had a fairly high opinion of their powers.
--Field Marshal Erwin Rommel Early August 1944
27 DECEMBER 1944
NEAR NAMUR, BELGIUM, SOUTH SIDE OF THE MEUSE RIVER, 0700 HOURS GMT
"Es gibt keine verzweifelten Lagen, es gibt nur verzweifelte Menschen." There are no desperate situations, there are only desperate people. Generaloberst Heinz Guderian, Der Schnelle Heinz (Hurrying Heinz) or sometimes Heinz Brausewetter (Hurricane Heinz), currently commanding officer of the Sixth Panzer Army, was fond of aphorisms and used them frequently.
Guderian was the sort of man referred to as a "natural leader." Handsome, with a warm, inviting smile and eyes that saw everything around him, he was popular with his men and always confident of himself and his mission. His weakness was his hot temper and his frequent and flagrant disregard of orders. It was the latter weakness that had ultimately led to his removal from command and appointment as Generalinspekteur der Panzertruppen. Rommel, with whom he had an ongoing rivalry of sorts--for Guderian, not Rommel, was the supreme theoretician of panzer operations--had pulled him back into the game with control of Sixth Panzers. And to his utter and complete frustration, he'd been stopped cold at the Meuse, unable to force an opposed river crossing.
It was that bastard Montgomery, who used British and U.S. troops to establish a solid line on the north side of the Meuse from Namur through Liège. With a force superior in numbers (but not, Guderian reflected with some satisfaction, superior generalship) and time to destroy the bridges and build a strong defensive position, Monty had been able to block every thrust Guderian had made along a fifty-mile front. But Guderian was still thrusting, still probing, and was confident of an eventual breakthrough ... as long as Manteuffel could hold up his end with Fifth Panzer Army. Manteuffel was lucky enough to find undestroyed bridges at Dinant, and so had leading elements across the river already. Eventually, Manteuffel's advance would force Montgomery to respond, and then Guderian would show everyone what a real panzer offensive looked like.
Finally, however, it had all come down to this: the bridges of Dinant destroyed, his forces blocked ... and a transcribed message from Rommel himself at Armeegruppe B headquarters. Surrender. Scheisse! he thought as he clenched his fist in helpless rage. Scheisse! The mere thought of surrender made him want to vomit. Even when it was a necessary act, it was shameful, disgusting--not to be borne.
At least he could take some small satisfaction that Montgomery was dead, according to intelligence. That smirking little English bastard could rot in hell. And as for Rommel--arrogant Hitler's boy, the shameless self-promoter, the jumped-up corps commander acting the role of baby field marshal, the comfortable bastard who'd only faced a clean (and warm) enemy in North Africa and never seen a Russian winter ... or muddy springtime--well, Guderian knew that if their positions had been reversed he would have done better.
There was only one problem. He agreed with Rommel that surrendering was the right thing to do. Better the Allies than the Soviet bastards. Now that the real führer was dead, the imitation führer didn't have what it took to win the war anymore. That arschloch Himmler strutting around in his SS uniform couldn't survive as a junior lieutenant in any real army.
Because of all this, though the battle was not yet lost the war was over. Guderian well knew that the Soviet "peace" would last not a second longer than the moment either side found itself with an advantage. Besides, he knew that the Soviets advanced in a wave, then stopped for resupply. Certainly Stalin would have made "peace" only during the period his forces needed rest and refurbishment, then start rolling forward. And no one knew better than Heinz Guderian that the Soviets were now unstoppable. Western Allies or Soviets. The only choice was which side--and that decision was easy.
His forces were in cease-fire status for the moment. In a few minutes he would start his command meeting to handle the business of surrender. He looked at the sheaf of papers on his desk, started to pick them up, then dropped them again. He could do this job off the top of his head.
Straightening his cap and drawing in a deep breath, Guderian walked out of his office, closing the door behind him.
 
Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper was awakened by his orderly. It was still dark on the cold and dreary late December morning. For a moment he was disoriented, back in the depths of the Russian campaign, before he realized where and when he was. Then he was fully awake. "Time to start the day again already?" he had asked his orderly in a pleasant, if sleepy, voice.
"No, Herr Obersturmbannführer. It's Berlin. They're on the radio for you."
"On my way." Peiper was instantly out of bed, pulling on his pants and grabbing a jacket. He had his personal headquarters in a commandeered farmhouse, and the radio room was in the dining room, just downstairs from the bedroom where he had been sleeping on a thin and worn mattress.
"Here he is, Berlin," the radio operator said into the microphone, then pulled off his headset and handed it to Peiper.
The crackling and hiss of the radio blared into his ears, a sudden attack of sound that made him wince slightly. "This is Obersturmbannführer Peiper. Go ahead."
"One moment, Obersturmbannführer," he heard, and then the next voice was one he recognized.
"Peiper?"
"Ja, mein Führer!" Peiper came to attention as he heard the instantly recognizable voice of Heinrich Himmler. The SS colonel was every bit as loyal to the second Führer of the Third Reich as he had been to the first.
Peiper knew him well. He had been a member of Himmler's personal staff before the war, rising to be Himmler's first adjutant. He had even married one of Himmler's staff secretaries. Few people knew Himmler well on a personal level, but Jochen Peiper was one of those few. Although like most Germans of his generation he had admired and even revered Adolf Hitler, and was devastated by his assassination, his opinion of Heinrich Himmler was nearly as high, and he had instantly transferred his total loyalty to the new führer.
"I have had extremely disturbing news from Armeegruppe B headquarters," announced the Führer of the Third Reich. "It seems that our Desert Fox has lost his taste for war."
"I beg your pardon, mein Führer?" Peiper answered, puzzled.
"SS-Brigadeführer Bücher told me that...

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Verlag
St Martin's Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2003
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0765304791
ISBN 13 
9780765304797
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
624
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
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