Dwight D. Eisenhower | Autograph letter signed, to his wife Mamie, on the aftermath of victory in Europe, 23 May 1945

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Autograph letter signed ("Always your Ike"), to his wife Mamie, explaining that with "destruction, disorder and disease all rampant in Germany" there are daunting problems facing the occupying armies in the immediate aftermath of the German surrender ("...all of us had been rather fatuously saying to ourselves for three years that we'd certainly relax a bit when the 'shooting stopped'. Well, we're not! In some ways we're busier than ever..."), referring to the prospect of his victory tour and the many high-ranking visitors he has had from home, 2 pages, lined stationery, [Reims,] 23 May 1945, with original envelope bearing Eisenhower's signature as censor

"...Many people seem astounded that I'd have no slightest interest in politics. I can't understand them..."

EISENHOWER ON THE AFTERMATH OF VICTORY. When he accepted the German surrender on 7 May 1945, Eisenhower went from being supreme commander of a fighting army to having responsibility, as occupying power, over a devastated land where millions were displaced and traumatised by war and genocide. He was acutely conscious of the depth of his responsibilities but in this letter, as usual, he expresses himself with folksy understatement. In any case, it is clear that he was too busy for reflection. He writes as SHAEF was "in the throes of moving" from Reims to its final headquarters in the I.G. Farbenindustrie Building in Frankfurt; final preparations were being made for the division of Germany into zones of occupation (announced in the Berlin Declaration of 5 June); he was entertaining high-profile visitors; and he was also looking forward to a victory tour that would culminate in his emotional homecoming to Abilene, Kansas. In a particularly fine example of Eisenhower's understated style, the prospect of a a series of tickertape parades that would see tens of thousands of cheering spectators lining the streets are here summarised as "some 'reception', I think, with me a part of a rather large party".