A letter to a 3-year-old on Hitler’s stationary
Posted by staff / November 1, 2011
In May of 1945, Lt. Richard Helms penned a letter to his 3-year-old son, Dennis, marking the day that WWII Allies accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany’s armed forces. Helms penned the letter to his young son on stationary he nabbed from the Berlin offices of a then-deceased Adolf Hitler.
Dennis, now a 69-year-old intellectual property lawyer, recently donated the seven-sentence letter, along with an album of correspondence and photos to the CIA museum.
“This letter was an opportunity to say what was on his mind,” Dennis Helms told the Washington Post. “I just wish there had been more such occasions.”
Letter Transcript:
Dear Dennis,
The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe — three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins. He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat — a boon to mankind. But thousands died that it might be so. The price for ridding society of bad is always high.
Love, Daddy
Full story at Washington Post. (H/T @lettersofnote)
What a touching and profound letter. Amazing that it just comes to the public now.