1945 (NOVEL)

'''1945''' is an alternate history co-authored by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen in 1995, describing the period immediately after a World War II wherein the United States had fought only against Japan, allowing Nazi Germany to defeat the Soviet Union, after which the two victors confront each other in a cold war which swiftly turns hot.
The book is unique in having been written by a well-known politician and published when the author was at the peak of a quite controversial career, with criticism of the book for its merits (or lack thereof) and criticism of the author for his political stance being almost inextricably mixed.
Almost invariably, reviews mentioned the "pouting sex kitten," a character who appeared only in the prologue.
Originally, the authors and Jim Baen, the head of Baen Books, had intended that ''1945'' would be the first of a trilogy.
The success of the Republican Party in the 1994 elections made Gingrich the most prominent member of the U.S. Congress. Anticipating a greatly-increased demand for the book, Baen was ordered by its distributor to switch from paperback to hardcover, and increased the print run to meet the much-larger advance orders from booksellers.
Their expectations proved unwarranted, and resulted in major financial troubles for the publisher.
Sales were respectable for a hardcover science-fiction novel, but nothing like the expected best-seller.
Over 80% of the copies printed were remaindered, killing paperback sales as well.

Contents

Plot

Critical response

References

See also

External links

Plot

The book details the planned invasion of the United States to stop the atomic bomb programs in Oak Ridge and Los Alamos, along with the invasion of England.
It ends with a cliffhanger — Rommel invading Scotland, the British facing a desperate fight, and Churchill imploring the Americans "come quickly, this is much worse than 1940" — but a promised sequel, provisionally called ''Fortress Europa'', has yet to be written, though many years have passed and the writers had meanwhile completed a different alternate history trilogy (beginning with '').
In our history, "Fortress Europe" was the Nazi concept of making German-occupied Europe impregnable to the invasion which was clearly coming since the US started massing its forces in Britain in 1943. In D-Day this "fortress" was decisively breached. The projected book's name seems to suggest that the same would happen in this history, some years behind schedule (and without a Soviet army simultaneously coming in from the east).

Critical response

The book drew many negative reviews which Gingrich supporters claimed were biased and politically-motivated (see [1]).
It has been described as being a disguised tract against gun control^[1] as a key scene depicts an armed Tennessee civilian militia, led by Alvin York, defeating Otto Skorzeny's commandos who raid Oak Ridge.

References

1. Book Review of 1945

See also

★ ''Fatherland''

★ ''It Happened Here''

★ ''The Man in the High Castle''

★ ''The Ultimate Solution''

★ ''SS-GB''

★ ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies''

★ ''Collaborator (novel)''

★ ''The Sound of His Horn''

★ ''Making History (novel)''

★ ''Swastika Night''

★ ''The Plot Against America''

★ ''The Iron Dream''

★ ''Triumph''

External links

★ "The World Hitler Never Made"