On August 4, 1941, a plane took off from Novy Borrisov, ran into a thunderstorm, and crash-landed at Rastenberg. Among those on board was the Fuehrer of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler. And during the next six months, while Hitler lay in a deep coma at his retreat in Berchtesgaden, Reich Marshal Hermann Goering ordered the German army to advance directly on Moscow and capture the city.
So begins a work of fiction so plausible in its linkage of real events—and yet so frightening in its depiction of their outcome—that World War II may never be quite the same again. With Hitler out of action, Goering sets the German war machine loose on Russia at a critical turning point of the fighting. Rommel had taken Egypt, and German forces were on their way to meet Japanese in the Middle East. With Britain deprived of its oil, Winston Churchill’s image begins to blacken, and his country may be driven out of the war completely. Meanwhile, the Japanese make their most daring move to date: an all-out attack on California. With bombs dropping on Hollywood and German troops in the Kremlin. THE MOSCOW OPTION is an extraordinary picture of the war that never was, and of the nightmare that might have been.