The World Hitler Never Made
Gavriel D. Rosenfeld
462 pages, including index and notes
published in 1990
Alternate history is a subgenre of science fiction, which revolves around asking what if the great historical events of the past happened differently, what would the world look like then? It’s unique in that it was invented twice at roughly the same tinme: in the pulp science fiction of the 1930s, but also amongst serious historians at the same time, independently of each other. Murray Leinster introduced the idea to science fiction in 1934, in “Sideways in Time“, while three years earlier a collection of alt-historical essays had appeared under the title If it Had Happened Otherwise, which contained contributions by such people as Winston Churchill. Much of what appeared in the pulps on this subject was of course the usual science fiction nonsense, not at all related to true history; it was only after World War II that science fiction writers would get interested in proper alternate history stories, rather than stories about visiting alternate worlds, with no resemblance to our own.
The reason is obvious: the Second World War seemed so much the work of an evil genius, Adolf Hitler, that it was very tempting to ask what would’ve happened if he hadn’t existed. At the same time, the menace of the nazis was so clear and the consequences of their victory so horrible that again, it was tempting to ask what would’ve happened if… Finally, there’s also the fate of Hitler himself, who disappeared at the end of the war, allegedly having committed suicide. Because the Russians refused to
confirm his suicide until the end of the Cold War, the road was clear for speculation about what else might’ve happened…