The Man with the Iron Heart: A Novel

by Harry Turtledove

What if V-E Day hadn’t ended World War II in Europe? What if, instead, the Allies had to face a potent, even fanatical, postwar Nazi resistance? Such a movement, based in the fabled Alpine Redoubt, was in fact a real threat, ultimately neutralized by Germany’s flagging resources and squabbling officials. But had SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, the notorious Man with the Iron Heart, not been assassinated in 1942, fate might have taken a different turn. In this imagined world, Nazi forces launch a guerrilla war, using the quick and dirty tactics of terrorism to overturn what seemed to be a decisive victory. Suddenly the Allies–especially the United States–are mired in a long, seemingly unwinnable conflict while battling an invisible, unrelenting enemy.

Genres: Alternate History, Fiction, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Audiobook, Military Fiction

546 pages, Paperback

First published July 22, 2008

About the author

Dr Harry Norman Turtledove is an American novelist, who has produced a sizeable number of works in several genres including alternate history, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction.

Harry Turtledove attended UCLA, where he received a Ph.D. in Byzantine history in 1977.

Turtledove has been dubbed "The Master of Alternate History". Within this genre he is known both for creating original scenarios: such as survival of the Byzantine Empire; an alien invasion in the middle of the World War II; and for giving a fresh and original treatment to themes previously dealt with by other authors, such as the victory of the South in the American Civil War; and of Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

His novels have been credited with bringing alternate history into the mainstream. His style of alternate history has a strong military theme.

Reviews

[MacWithBooksonMountains Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

His best book.

[Justin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sadly, this book was a huge disappointment. I am normally a huge fan of Harry Turtledove, but he seriously drops the ball in this book. Many of his other books cleverly integrate major historical events into the narrative and weave an interesting blend of history and fiction. This book, however, simply takes the current problems and arguments over the Iraq War and replaces insurgents with Nazis and George W. Bush with Harry Truman. The thing that I loved about Turtledove was that many of his narratives were for the most part believable. I could imagine the events of his other alternate histories as being remotely plausible. However, his comparison of WWII, a war the US was forced into, a war against a genocidal regime bent on world domination, with the Iraq War, a conflict instigated by the United States against a largely impotent regime, is laughable. In addition, The Man with the Iron Heart is, sadly, light on history. Turtledove does an interesting job creating an alternative version of Truman’s first few years in office, faithfully recreating his feisty personality, the Democrats loss of Congressional power in the midterm elections, and Truman’s weakness in national polls in the months prior to his re-election, but he doesn’t complete the job, ignoring the 1948 election and Truman’s famous whistle-stop campaign. The ending of the book also leaves a lot to be desired. Overall, The Man with the Iron Heart is a fairly weak effort by an author apparently struggling to find a new venue following the conclusion of his long running Timeline 191 series.

[Tony duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting idea for a book.
In this alternaitve History, there is one minor eventy that changed which allowed nazis tyo fight on after they "lost" the war. It mixes real historical personages with imoptant fictional characters and builds a very believable story about how it would play out, if the Nazis developed sophisticated terrorist technics while Germany was occupied.
This is much more subtle than the Orson Scott cvard book ( see my review of "Empire"). which was a prety transparant ideological tract pretending to be "fair and balanaced" and unideological. There is never any real pontificating in this book. he paints the characters quite realistically (and the narratert does a great job of giving them texture and personality), and each side tels its story and its reasoning very clearly. While at the end it seems like it might be a book supporting the Iraq war and showing that we need to be fighting there no matter what because they are fanatics out to destroy our way of life, the context is so different, that if that was his purpose it fails dramatically.

Of course I thnk that his premise is pretty unlikely. I don't believe that psychologically the Nazis had the genuine support that would have been necesary after they were so devastatinly defeated and their ideology of superiority was effectively discredited. By the end of the war I think the vast majority of germans hated nazism. There were nazi guerilla fighters after WWII. but i think there was very little possibility of them ever getting popular support by any means.

I did really like the characters. The depiction of Russian NKVD (KGB) fit with everything I know about Russian culture, and the depictionsof Truman seemed right on. It got a little tedious on occasion, and there were elements that I thought were unnecesary, but i did enjoy it

[Brian Eshleman]

The premise is interesting -- what if the Germans engaged in guerrilla warfare rather than surrender? Truman dug-in for the long fight is believable. The degree to which this is a M*A*S*H-style commentary on current events is distracting, as is every character's fixation on booze and sex and use of the same phrases.

[Lucas]

I didn't really enjoy this book as most of what I read was boring, but the concept was there, just I didn't like the execution.

[Nikolas Toner · Rating 2 out of 5]

For people who like "alternative history" it's written well.

This is how I found out I do not like alternative history.

Read for a book club, I'm glad I did because I would not have read it otherwise.
I think Harry Turtledove did a good job writing it, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who would like it a lot. The characters and plots were well thought out. The interconnection was solid.

But for me if I'm going to be reading a long ass book about a war I want to like learn something, and not just that everything has to be compared to the Nazis for us to think it's bad or scary.
Yes, it would have sucked if there was a guerilla movement in Germany after the war. Good thing there wasn't. Yes, it sucks that warfare during the Vietnam war became more underground.
I just don't think you have to force one aspect of history to mirror something else in order to understand it. Or, that's not fair, maybe you do. Probably more people will understand the differences if they read this.

I obviously have mixed feelings. But for me overall I wouldn't read another alternative history where everything sucks. Things suck enough in real history, so I prefer to read those.

[Amanda Del Brocco · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was way too long. It was very repetitive, and a lot of the plot was the same scenario over and over, with different characters in different locations with different dialogue. I would have enjoyed it much more if it had been edited down to the most impactful scenes and they were further developed instead of only being a couple of pages, only to be repeated later in the chapter.

I thought the concept was creative overall but the writing suffered as a result of the repetitiveness and it made it difficult to be interested in picking it up. The last quarter was definitely where it picked up and I read through that pretty quickly as it definitely held my interest.

[Bibliophile · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently June was my month for "what-if?" novels about Nazi Germany; after Philip Kerr's Hitler's Peace, I read Harry Turtledove's The Man with the Iron Heart, which posits that Reinhard Heydrich survived the attempt on his life in 1942 and went on to head a bloody Nazi resistance to the Allies after May 8, 1945. Turtledove draws extensively from contemporary events in Iraq to describe a world in which Nazi "Werewolves" blow up courthouses (and assassinate Konrad Adenauer as well as General Patton and Marshal Zhukov), and it's certainly an interesting idea to think about what might have happened if the unconditional surrender hadn't been unconditionally adhered to.

I have a big problem with Turtledove's using the American occupation of Iraq in the 1990s as a road-map for his imagined Allied occupation of Germany, though. Turtledove seems to be suggesting that American opposition to the war in Iraq such as that of Cindy Sheehan is tantamount to giving aid and comfort to the Nazis (there's a Sheehan-like figure in the novel who organizes a "get out of Germany now!" movement) and he moreover appears to suggest that the Americans should have dealt with the Iraqis in the same way that the NKVD deals with the Germans in his book. (Maybe I am reading too much into this analogy, but I found it deeply offensive on many, many levels.)

Furthermore, I don't think he's very psychologically acute about the Germans and their motivations. Everything I've ever read about post-World War II Germany suggests that after six years of war and the destruction of their cities, the Germans would have wanted nothing to do with suicide attacks! So basically I didn't buy the premise of the novel and the prose and characterization certainly weren't anything to write home about so I think that's it for Turtledove and me!!

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Turtledove presents and interesting premise: what if the Nazi's started a guerrilla war with the US occupation of Germany? I was drawn to it because I read the book Fiasco, a book by Thomas Ricks about the Iraq war, and I wanted to see how it compared with Turtledove's re-interpretation.

My favorite part was seeing how Turtledove portrayed the two powers affected by the Nazi insurgency -- the US and Russia -- and how they differed in fighting it. It brought to light some of the "weaknesses" of the US way of waging war, while also keeping the reader aware of the ruthlessness and inhumanity of the Russian method.

Turtledove also seemlessly placed the tactics of the Iraq insurgency in the WWII-era. Road-size bombs and suicide bombers abounded, but the Nazi insurgency also distributes unmarked film reels of kidnapping victims instead of web videos.

I loved the characters, but they started to feel flat near the end of the book, and Turtledove has a simplistic writing style that eventually got on my nerves. Overall, it was an interesting experiment in alternative history, and it gave me a lot of insight into both WWII and Iraq. I recommend anyone curious about both pick it up. This one's a good library pick.

[Thomas Vree · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve heard about his stuff for years, his alternate history, and decided to try a one off story, rather than one that was part of a larger series. And I really didn’t dig it. The premise is based on a fact – at the end of WW2, there was a half hearted attempt by the Nazis to organize a guerrilla resistance to the Allied occupation. It never really came to much. Despite the fact that there were still die-hard holdouts, by and large, the Germans had been well and truly crushed. The story here is that Heydrich wasn’t assassinated in Czechoslovakia in 1942, and ended up being the leader of this movement, the Werewolves as they were called. I think my big problem with it was that it tried way too hard to transpose events of today, ie Iraq, to the situation in post WW2 Germany. It came off as hollow and contrived to me. That and I had trouble buying into the idea that people back on the homefront in the USA organized to oppose the continued occupation in Germany. I know, alternate history, it requires a suspension of disbelief, but it just didn’t feel believable to me.

I finished it, and I will give some of his other stuff a shot one day, but this one I didn’t find that satisfying.

[Scott Tarver · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful "what if" story about the Nazi werewolves following the end or World War II in Europe. It's hard for me to put the book down.

[Clay Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of the story taken from recent wars.

[Sgtpossum · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seems to be getting a bit of hate, but honestly: it's as good as it needs to be.

It isn't a masterpiece, obviously. Turtledove writes an enormous volume of fiction, cranking books out on a yearly basis at the very least, from what I can tell, so you can't expect him to be Steinbeck or Vargas Llosa. And that isn't what you should expect from this kind of novel, anyway. It's a book that exists to explore a "what-if" scenario, not a novel about the greatest human truths.

The "what-if" scenario proposed--that is, what if the Alpine Redoubt was actually effective--is tackled very well. Moreover, the question passes into more disturbing territory when you realize that it's also asking, "what if a guerrilla campaign was waged by a competent military?" Let's face it: the Taliban are not, and the Viet Cong were not, particularly good fighters. Generally the guerrillas America has faced are poorly-trained, inexperienced radicalized locals, dying in greater numbers than the American troops and rarely achieving anything that can be called tactical success.

This book, however, explores just how terrifyingly dangerous a trained, battle-hardened foe could be as a stay-behind force. Both NATO and the Soviets toyed with this idea during the Cold War: leaving behind capable fighters with well-hidden weapons caches to keep fighting in the event of a major rout. In that situation, the guerrillas would almost certainly do more damage, both immediately and in the long term, than the larger conventional force could possibly manage. Imagine if every time the Taliban hit an American base they actually took it over and killed all the soldiers within, rather than simply turning tail once the professional soldiers started shooting back. Probably, we wouldn't still be there.

Which brings it to the other question. What is more moral: to risk an endless war with unclear goals now, or to risk a far more devastating war in the future by pulling out? While Turtledove does seem to take a side on this, he's fair to both arguments. In short, this is a novel with far more depth to it than one might imagine from the rather folksy, rat's-eye view it provides. Definitely worth a read.

As far as the book's failings, well. They're mostly the things you could criticize about the majority of Turtledove's alternate history works. None of the characters are well-developed--more of a parade of names, really--and an overuse of profanity. I get that soldiers really do talk like that, but it sounds pretty silly when you're reading it and can take you out of the moment, not to mention that of the twenty or so pages of text that probably exist only because of the addition of profanity, maybe one of them is actually necessary to retain.

Still, check it out if it's the genre you're interested in. I had fun with it.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the title references Nazi leader Heydriech, this novel is about a number of folks and he is simply a player in a cast of thousands. Turtledove, a master at alternate history, composes a chilling "what if" story. What if Heydriech had not been assasinated, but relegated to a special mission? That mission admitted that the Nazis were losing the war and Heydriech creates a plan to build a German resistance. World War II ends, the peace is signed, but Heydriech and a group of diehard Nazis have moved underground and continue to fight a covert war.

Turtledove manages to create a cast of characters that makes this novel interesting. Of course, Truman plays an important part among the fictional constructs. The covert war allows us to watch the Russian, French, and American response to what amount to acts of terrorism that keep the conflict raging after the peace is signed. In America, a growing movement to bring our troops home reflect some of the modern peace movement. This is exactly the type of war our soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Vietnam. The arguements against bringing the troops home primarily center on the fear of having to fight the Nazis in a third world war in another decade or so. The counter-balance to that is that America has the Atomic Bomb and can simply bomb them back to the Stone Age-- so why risk our troops?

Sadly, the book becomes more lecture on the need to fight in places like Afghanistan (by metaphor, perhaps unintentional, but seems heavily implied) and keep terrorists down than it is a novel. An interesting read, but nothing spectacular-- After all, Turtledove has written better material.

[Ronald Spitzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

All too real a book. Thankfully the Germans didn't do this and thankfully Heydrich was killed in our history in 1942. Shades of Cuba, Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and look how those turned out. This book has a good selection of interesting characters to tell the story. The events are logical and characterization growth/change is logical and all too real in some cases. Right after reading this book, I found and read and editorial in the newspaper that we go fix Haiti again. I did not agree with the U.S. fix part. We have been fixing Haiti for over 130 years and look what we currently have with is chaos, murderous gangs, victimized Americans who have tried to help people in Haiti. The U.S. is insane if we go and try these newspapers fix idea. What part of repeated failure on our part do we really think will happen different. We will be foreigners/outsiders and thus targets. We do not know better; just look how close to chaos we are ourselves inside our own nation. A definition of insanity is when you go do the same failed idea again that has repeated failed and imagine it will work this time. I remember the politicians said Afghanistan would be done different and look how that turned out - 20 years, lots of deaths, stolen money and if Trump had been president the Taliban would have been in control by now anyways and victimizing the women, we broke promises to. Not to mention being a terrorist haven again. I do recommend this book, because it is a good read. Just be thankful this did not happen because if it did....

[Gergely · Rating 2 out of 5]

While the basic premise is interesting, and the writing is competent, there were two factors that broke my suspension of disbelief, and dropped the book from 3* to 2*.

1) The sheer amount of successful operations the guerilla nazis pull off. Sure, training and preparation counts for a lot, especially with asymmetrical warfare like this, but I can't recall a single instance of failed operations shown or mentioned. Admittedly, the single instance luck goes against them results in Heydrich's death, but still, there are no other implications that they have trouble mounting any successful operations... One or two on-screen, or even mentioned off-screen failures would have gone a long way.

2) Related to the above, the amount of material and trained personnel made available for the Werewolf campaign does not seem to have affected the nazi war effort at all - even though IRL nazis faced resource and manpower issues already in 1944. And yet suddenly the guerillas have extensive, well-supplied bunker systems, fully stocked with war material... Yeah, no, I cannot believe that this amount of diverted resources does not affect the ongoing war effort (building the Atlantic Wall/Siegfried Line, slowing the Red Army, etc.)

[Karen Ford · Rating 4 out of 5]

This stand alone novel follows the style of the author's great alternate history series, in that it follows both historical figures and fictional characters as they make they way through the events of the story. This book examines what would happen if Nazi Germany had a plan in place for an effective resistance in case the tide of the war turned against them.

It's also an allegory for the 2003 Iraq war with events following the Second World War echoing the aftermath of the mideast war, including protests and media coverage turning against the government.

The story, though, is good, following members of the American and Russian armed forces as they try to deal with the Nazi resistance and the efforts of a mother whose son is killed to bring the rest of the troops back from Europe.

It is an engrossing read and one that makes you think about what could have happened to change the world as we know it today.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guns Of The South was great, I thought, when I read it many years ago, and I’d been looking for a standalone novel by Turtledove to read on, and off since. Seems most of his works are in several parts. Well, I barely made it through The Man With The Iron Heart.
It was so repetitive, characters asking the same rhetorical questions chapter after chapter. It’s basically imagined disaster, after failure, after debacle. But we never see any of the planning or lead up on the Nazi side. The story on the home front is boring, as is the political play by play. Brief action scenes towards the end are okay. I may have missed it, but I don’t think they ever got around to the war crimes trial. High hopes, mostly dashed.

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure why this book is derided as much as it seems to be by other reviewers. It's a modestly told alternate World War II story, with the usual cavalcade of characters, dialogue, and ideas I've come to expect from Mr. Turtledove.

Is it topical? Maybe. I mean, there are a couple of comparisons that can be drawn between the occupation of Nazi Germany and the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, but that's about it. The caliber of villain portrayed in the novel is greater than that posed by ISIS or al Qaeda by several orders of magnitude.

I love a story in which both the good guys and bad guys essentially win...

[C. Scott Kippen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad read about Germany further resisting after surrendering in WWII. However, it is at least 200 pages longer than it needed to be for what it conveyed, and surprising, the title character (the man with they Iron Heart, Heydrich, is an absent character in this book. He have a few chapters where he appears, but there is no character development in this book about him. Lots of other side characters, but not a single German is examined (either pro or against the uprising). Having a German perspective (both sides) probably would have improved this book. But the German perspective, is entirely missing.

[Becky Beaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alternative historical fiction here... exploring what might happen if WWII had ended with Germany mounting an effective guerrilla war, such as was seen in Afghanistan. This is a chilling sequence of events, which also posits an active push to "bring the boys home" even though the German territory is not quiescent under occupation. It reminded me of the time travel Star Trek TOS episode where Kirk falls in love with a woman active in the peace movement in the 1940s... I found this book disturbing, well-written, and engrossing. Recommended.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked but did not love this book. Alternative history thrives in what I consider the third order effects, i.e, the initial split from history, the somewhat obvious repercussions from that split, and then the less obvious third order effects that stem from the obvious repercussions. In this book, Turtledove stayed mostly in the second category, which made the book less interesting than it could have been.

[Spenser · Rating 2 out of 5]

This almost went into the 'unable to finish' category. I read it for FREE via the library (spending money on this would have been criminal). "OK" is about the best I can say. Lackluster in many portions of the book. I resorted to skimming many pages due to the lack of interest. The book seemingly had potential but it never really grabbed me.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great what if book by Turtledove. What happens if Hedrich was not assassinated and the Germans did gorilla warfare. TD does such a great job intertwining real people- history- and his own assumed historical fiction mixed with regular everyday people. I have read a lot of this author and I plan on continuing to read more.

[Robert M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pathetic. I don't know why I finished this turd. Tired old cliches, characters you don't give a shit about. Unresolved plot threads you don't care about either. Badly written. Total waste of an interesting premise. Only redeemed by my nostalgia.

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

What would have happened if the Germans had kept up guerrilla warfare after the peace had been signed? What if a mother started a campaign to bring all the troops home because her son was killed after the peace was signed? Makes us think about what is happening today.

[CASPER HILEMAN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reinhard Heydrich in this alternate history novel survives the assassination attempt and becomes even more heartless and brutal. Heydrich would gain more and more power and after the surrender of Hitler, Heydrich takes to the mountains and resists the Allies.

[Mattaniah Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is typical Turtledove goop but better than some of his stuff written since. The premise is fascinating and I appreciate his boldness is actually letting an alternate history have actual timeline changes. I just wish it had a sequel, kinda leaves us hanging.

[Cüneyt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Güzel kitap, savaş sonrası Almanya da direnişi anlatıyor, gerçekte yaşanabilecek bir senaryo

[Eric Bauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe just a little too long, but an interesting read all the same.