Third Reich Victorious: The Alternate History of How the Germans Won the War

by Peter G. Tsouras

Release Date: 01 April, 2002

Edition: Hardcover

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Mostly solid collection of alternate histories

Third Reich Victorious is a collection of alternate history stories (companion to Rising Sun Victorious) about World War 2. It contains ten stories of alternate outcomes, with either the Germans winning in Europe or else still losing, but having it take much longer to finish the war.

Most of the stories are thoughtful and interesting, although a few stretched belief. For instance, in the first one, Germany wins through sea power where a young Hitler becomes a naval officer rather than in the infantry. He also loses his racism against the Jews after a lecture by an admired NCO. Basically, it's not the same Nazi Germany here. Well that seems easy to write, when everything is different. I prefer alternate stories where you're basically dealing with the same personalities and they just happen to make a different choice than they did historically, or they excute better.

There are many well written stories here though and all stories are well footnoted, which the reader will appreciate greatly. Very nice.

A real view

A real eye opener.

This is real alternate history. Each of the selected articles could actually have happened. Though I do have my reservations on how the Germans might have reacted to a Soviet Invasion. Adolf Hitler had a habit of demanding Stand and Fight Regardless of situation, such as Stalingrad. More German soldiers probably died because of his lack of insight than allied military genius. And the sight of Rommel just exploding at the sights of Dachau, like his American counterparts did after the war. Dachau was not that bad yet. Auschwitz or Majdanek would have been a better place to put him in scene.

Over all, this is a great book on what could have been had chance gone a different direction.