Within the realm of alternate history literature and scenarios, World War II is particularly prominent for fiction authors and historians to ponder on. In The Hitler Options: Alternate Decisions of WWII, ten military historians—which included book editor Kenneth Macksey—looked at scenarios which could have changed the course of the war towards the Third Reich and its Axis partners against the Allies or that the Allies could have decided to the detriment of the Nazis.

The scenarios ranged from the decision to invade England soon after the end of the Battle of France to the Axis securing the Mediterranean before turning to the Soviet Union to linking up with the Japanese to focusing on a jet fighter instead of a jet bomber. While eight of the scenario focused on decisions benefiting the Nazis, two focused on decisions the Western Allies could have made to fight the war differently. The two Allied focused scenarios, “Through the Soft Underbelly” and “Operation ARMAGGEDON”, were among best written in the book along with the Nazi focused “Operation SPINX”, “Operation WOTAN”, and “Operation GREENBRIER”.

While the five other scenarios were just as interesting, the style the author chose to write them undermined their overall effectiveness to some degree especially when compared those scenarios cited above as. Then ten scenarios came up a total of 216 pages, which came out to just barely 20 pages per scenario when excluding maps used for each. This short length for each scenario to be developed in my opinion hurt some of the less impressive scenarios and could have added depth to some of the best as well.

Overall The Hitler Decisions is a good book for those interested in alternate history, especially concentrated around World War II. Yet, there are some drawbacks with the relatively short length average of each piece that hurt some of the scenarios along with stylistic choices. ( )

The Hitler Options is an anthology by ten respected military authors, each of whom tackles a different scenario from the Second World War. In each scenario, a crucial decision is made differently, and the consequences are examined to the course of the war. Seven of the scenarios deal with Axis strategy--from that perennial favourite of World War II what-ifs, a German invasion of Britain in the Summer of 1940, to an attempt by the German and Japanese high commands to link-up their spheres by launching a pincer invasion of India--while the other three deal with alternate Allied routes to victory, such as the Western Alliance launching its invasion of Europe northward, from the Mediterranean, rather than taking the time to shift their forces (in the Mediterranean after the liberation of North Africa and conquest of Italy) back to Britain in preparation for D-Day. If we'd gone through what Churchill termed the "soft underbelly of Europe", that scenario's author predicts that not only could the war have been by Christmas 1944, but that the Western Allies would have reached Berlin and the Balkan countries before the Soviets, resulting in a postwar Communist bloc of only Poland and Romania.

The Hitler Options goes to great lengths to stress how realistic it is--how every alternate decision is in-character and every consequence from that decision is plausible. This isn't always the case, but it's fascinating, thought-provoking reading nonetheless. ( )