PROCLAMATION ANNOUNCING THE LIBERATION OF FRANCE. by Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D - 1944

Eisenhower, Gen. Dwight D. Proclamation. Printed broadside in French. Approx. 42 x 47 cm. N.p. [London?]: [1944]. Black printing on white paper. Old fold lines otherwise very good.

Rare. Three copies of the poster recorded and two of the leaflet version. OCLC lists 3 holdings. (U. Mich. 42 x 43 cm.; UNC-Chapel Hill 42 x 48 cm. & Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin 25 x 21 cm. – apparently a leaflet as the National Archives.) There is also one copy at the George C. Marshall Foundation Library. (37 x 42 cm.) The National Archives has a leaflet variant with the text printed half on front and back.

"These broadsides were posted in the liberated areas around the Normandy beachheads in June 1944 by the American, British, Canadian, and Free French forces that finally breeched Adolf Hitler's 'Fortress Europe'. Very few of these broadsides survived due to their fragile nature and the intervening years." – Heritage Auctions

The backstory on this Proclamation is itself interesting. "By early 1944 a 'Special Leaflet Squadron', the American 422nd, was established and supplied with unarmed B-17's, camouflaged and modified for night flying. It was this unit which was to precede the Allied bomber force into France, ironically as daylight dawned on D-Day morning, dropping warning leaflets for the civilian population …. [T]he French version of Eisenhower's 'proclamation', [was dropped] during the night of June 6th/7th. … De Gaulle's objections had been to references in Eisenhower's proclamation to the 'prompt and willing obedience to the orders that I shall issue', that he required from the French population and to the statement that 'as France is liberated from her oppressors, you yourselves will choose your representatives and the government under which you wish to live'. The French general found these elements in the proclamation insulting to the dignity of his fellow countrymen and to his own standing as their, he felt, chosen leader." –- Caroline Reed, "D-Day Propaganda" History Today, Vol 34 Issue 6 1984. A wonderful display piece. Full text in French or the rough English translation available on request.