How Hitler Could Have Won World War II - Hardcover

Bevin Alexander

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568526156 ISBN 13: 9781568526157

Publisher: W.S. Konecky, 2006

Synopsis

With an acute eye for detail and his use of clear prose, acclaimed military historian Bevin Alexander explores for the first time just how close the Allies were to losing the war. Alexander's harrowing study shows how only minor tactical changes in Hitler's military approach could have changed the world we live in.

About this title

Review:

Adolf Hitler rose to political prominence by quickly identifying his opponents' weaknesses and turning them to his advantage. As a military leader, however, he rarely exercised the same talent for exploiting weak spots. Instead, he threw the bulk of his armies against his enemies' strongest positions, sacrificing much-needed forces at Stalingrad and Tobruk, among other places.

Had he done otherwise, writes Bevin Alexander, Hitler might well have carried the day. His strategy until mid-1940 had been flawless, Alexander argues: "He isolated and absorbed state after state in Europe, gained the Soviet Union as a willing ally, destroyed France's military power, threw the British off the Continent, and was left with only weak and vulnerable obstacles to an empire covering most of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East." After 1940, however, Hitler committed a legion of failures. Ignoring his field commanders' urging, he refused to commit armored divisions to seize the Suez Canal, which would have secured most of the Mediterranean and given the Third Reich easy access to oil. He diverted resources from the navy, allowing the Allies to gain control of the Atlantic Ocean and maintain nearly unbroken supply lines between the United States and Britain. And he weakened Germany's abilities to wage war by turning his armies' energies to carrying out the Final Solution. These and other miscalculations, Alexander suggests, cost the Reich many hard-won strategic advantages, and eventually any chance of victory.

Second-guessing history is an endeavor fraught with peril, and in any event, many historians have discounted the possibility that the Nazi regime could have emerged from global war undefeated. But Alexander's arguable exercise in counterfactuals soon gives way to a thoughtful, generally uncontroversial survey of the war in Europe, one that is of use to students of military history and tactics. --Gregory McNamee

From the Back Cover:

"Bevin Alexander, an experienced military historian who writes with clarity and alarm, here presents a new and insightful interpretation of Hitler's lost opportunities to win World War II. In the process Alexander gives us a concise history of the war in Europe."
-- Martin Blumenson, author of The Patton Papers and Patton: The Man Behind the Legend

"In his latest book, How Hitler Could Have Won World War II, author Bevin Alexander has synthesized and analyzed the military campaigns by Germany under Hitler's control in such a readable fashion as to intrigue both armchair generals as well as serious students of military strategy and tactics. It should be a required text for study at all military schools and war colleges."
-- Thomas H. Moorer, Admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.), former chairman, U.S. Joint chiefs of Staff

"Speculation is the handmaiden of a historian's search for a story of the past.... Bevin Alexander has compiled his 'What if?'s' into a fascinating, plausible and, in retrospect, alarming scenario of what might have been if only Hitler had been a bit more rational, a bit better at grand strategy."
-- F. J. Kroesen, former commander-in-chief, U.S. Army-Europe, and commander, NATO Central Army Group

About this edition

• Publisher: W.S. Konecky
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1568526156
• ISBN 13: 9781568526157
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 340