EISENHOWER, Dwight D. (1890-1969). President. Autograph letter signed (“Ike”), as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, to Mamie D. Eisenhower, 13 September [1944]. 2 pages, 4to, slight age-toning; with original envelope and censor’s stamp.
EISENHOWER, Dwight D. (1890-1969). President. Autograph letter signed (“Ike”), as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, to Mamie D. Eisenhower, 13 September [1944]. 2 pages, 4to, slight age-toning; with original envelope and censor’s stamp. “THE GERMAN IS A BEAST” “In Paris one sees little evidence of physical damage,” Ike tells Mamie, reporting on his second visit to the capital since American and French troops liberated it just three weeks earlier, on 25 August. But “the larger towns in our path of advance have been pulverized. St. Lo and Caen, especially. I always feel sad when I face the necessity of destroying the home of my friends.” But he knows where the moral responsibility for this destruction lies, and in the next sentence declares, in disgust: “The German is a beast.” He had been in Paris “for a brief ceremony” but was eager to get away as soon as he could: “I prefer camps to cities.” Eisenhower was still recuperating from a knee injury sustained in a crash landing. He gossips about some of his close aides like Mickey McKeogh, Harry C. (“Butch”) Butcher, and T. J. Davis, an old Philippines comrade of Eisenhower who evidently burned out. “He worked too hard,” Ike says. Lt. Col. Gault (who signed the censor stamp) has become his new aide. With the Allied armies advancing rapidly through France, Eisenhower ends on a hopeful note: “Maybe it won’t be as long as I first feared, 2 years ago, before we have this fellow crushed.” But eight brutal months of fighting, on two fronts, remained. The British and American advance stalled in the autumn; Hitler launched his desperate Ardennes offensive in December; and not until Soviet forces captured Berlin would the “German beast” be conquered. A fine, emotional letter showing Eisenhower’s sensitivity to the human cost of the war.
EISENHOWER, Dwight D. (1890-1969). President. Autograph letter signed (“Ike”), as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, to Mamie D. Eisenhower, 13 September [1944]. 2 pages, 4to, slight age-toning; with original envelope and censor’s stamp.
EISENHOWER, Dwight D. (1890-1969). President. Autograph letter signed (“Ike”), as Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force, to Mamie D. Eisenhower, 13 September [1944]. 2 pages, 4to, slight age-toning; with original envelope and censor’s stamp. “THE GERMAN IS A BEAST” “In Paris one sees little evidence of physical damage,” Ike tells Mamie, reporting on his second visit to the capital since American and French troops liberated it just three weeks earlier, on 25 August. But “the larger towns in our path of advance have been pulverized. St. Lo and Caen, especially. I always feel sad when I face the necessity of destroying the home of my friends.” But he knows where the moral responsibility for this destruction lies, and in the next sentence declares, in disgust: “The German is a beast.” He had been in Paris “for a brief ceremony” but was eager to get away as soon as he could: “I prefer camps to cities.” Eisenhower was still recuperating from a knee injury sustained in a crash landing. He gossips about some of his close aides like Mickey McKeogh, Harry C. (“Butch”) Butcher, and T. J. Davis, an old Philippines comrade of Eisenhower who evidently burned out. “He worked too hard,” Ike says. Lt. Col. Gault (who signed the censor stamp) has become his new aide. With the Allied armies advancing rapidly through France, Eisenhower ends on a hopeful note: “Maybe it won’t be as long as I first feared, 2 years ago, before we have this fellow crushed.” But eight brutal months of fighting, on two fronts, remained. The British and American advance stalled in the autumn; Hitler launched his desperate Ardennes offensive in December; and not until Soviet forces captured Berlin would the “German beast” be conquered. A fine, emotional letter showing Eisenhower’s sensitivity to the human cost of the war.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
