Germanica

Robert Conroy’s alternate history novel Germanica takes place in the final days of World War II. In the book, Josef Goebbels, his closest advisers, other high-ranking members of the Nazi Party, as well as regular soldiers along with some SS troops, all go into hiding in Goebbels’ fortress in the Alps called the National Redoubt to wait out the Allied assault and resurrect the new Nazi empire. The National Redoubt was an actual idea which was proposed by Heinrich Himmler but later rejected by Hitler. Conroy, however, takes the idea of the National Redoubt into the main focus point of his story. However, the Allied forces spearheaded by the United States become concerned with the sudden German movement and plan an operation to prevent the Nazis from achieving their goal of world domination. For this purpose, the U.S. sends a team of three, O.S.S. operative Ernie Janek, commando Scott Tanner, and Lena Bobek, a Czech Jew. Together, they must use their wits to save their world from the Nazi yoke.

Conroy, while really good at crafting a believable story, falls flat on character development. In my opinion, while I enjoyed the author’s excellent command of historical and military knowledge, I felt that the characters lacked traits that made them unique. I also felt that the suspense was a bit weak as the story progressed linearly. Because of the few twists and turns in the book, I could almost predict what would happen next in the story. Nevertheless, Germanica is quite a believable alternate history novel with a pretty good dose of action.