Reddit reviews Fatherland

Fatherland is also good.

Edit: And since this is /r/mapporn, here's a map from the book, and another fan made one.

Another vote for speculative fiction. The book is "Fatherland" by Richard Harris. http://www.amazon.com/Fatherland-Robert-Harris/dp/0061006629

He also wrote "Enigma," a wonderful book about codebreaking in WWII.

Nah maaate. I call Cold war and free europe held @ bay. That's OUR timeline.

Stalin did not conquer, occupy or attack western europe. IF there had been no WW2; no bloody war between soviets and nazis... conceivably he could have attacked an un-militarised europe on a time scale that suited him, maybe around 1950, and if that happened, that's basically game over!

There are many IFs...
In our timeline the Reds all but conquered the Nazis (one of the most ferocious fighting forces of all time) after already talking a severe beating. In doing so the USSR weakened enough that it couldn't crush allied western europe... even after that, if it wasn't for the marshall plan the USSR may well have communist-ized a shattered europe. If it hadn't been for the exodus of german scientists the US may not have got the atom bomb, and it probably wouldn't have got a space programme. Remember, the USSR was way ahead of the US in the space race at the start, and that is without having captured the likes of von Braun.

All this is crazy speculation, but I personally doubt that the US could have 'held Stalin at bay' if history had unfolded like that. Without Stalin they could not have defeated Hitler. And had Hitler been smarter, and not tried to fight Stalingrad, maybe WW2 would have ended with a truce between Nazi-fied Europe, and a USA victorious over Japan

As we see from countless examples, the USA isn't so great at war abroad, and it's not like WW2 was the USA led enterprise hollywood makes it out to be. You arrived seriously late, after the USSR had totally destroyed the Nazis, and helped the (admittedly difficult) final push. You also sold Britain expensive supplies (much obliged) for land and money. But rest assured, soviet might plus western european science and technology would make an unbeatable foe for the USA minus exiled jewish rocket & nuclear scientists.

TLDR; What is more scary; 1) our timeline? 2) Or one where the Nazis don't attack USSR and thus win WW2? 3) Or one where there is no WW2/Hitler and the Soviets attack un-militarised Europe? I think the USA got a great deal out of our timeline! Options 2 and 3 would make the USA shit itself, and would have sucked ass for Europe, possibly more than option 1. In conclusion, our timeline may, bizarrely, be probably better.

(EDITED FOR CLARITY, spelling, etc.)