March 3rd,
1942.
His
Excellency Franklin D. Roosevelt.,
President of
the United States of America.
The White
House.,
Washington.
D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
May I take the
liberty of encroaching on your valuable time and that of your staff at the
White House? Mindful of the critical days the nation is now passing through, I
do so only because the prerogative of your high office alone can decide my
difficult and singular situation.
Permit me to
outline as briefly as possible the circumstances of my position, the solution
of which I feel could so easily be achieved should you feel moved to give your
kind intercession and decision.
I am the nephew
and only descendant of the ill-famed Chancellor and Leader of Germany who today
so despotically seeks to enslave the free and Christian peoples of the globe.
Under your
masterful leadership men of all creeds and nationalities are waging desperate
war to determine, in the last analysis, whether they shall finally serve and
live an ethical society under God or become enslaved by a devilish and pagan
regime.
Everybody in the
world today must answer to himself which cause they will serve. To free people
of deep religious feeling there can be but one answer and one choice, that will
sustain them always and to the bitter end.
I am one of many,
but I can render service to this great cause and I have a life to give that it
may, with the help of all, triumph in the end.
All my relatives
and friends soon will be marching for freedom and decency under the Stars and
Stripes. For this reason, Mr. President, I am respectfully submitting this
petition to you to enquire as to whether I may be allowed to join them in their
struggle against tyranny and oppression?
At present this
is denied me because when I fled the Reich in 1939 I was a British subject. I
came to America with my Irish mother principally to rejoin my relatives here.
At the same time I was offered a contract to write and lecture in the United
States, the pressure of which did not allow me the time to apply for admission
under the quota. I had therefore, to come as a visitor.
I have attempted
to join the British forces, but my success as a lecturer made me probably one
of the best attended political speakers, with police frequently having to
control the crowds clamouring for admission in Boston, Chicago and other
cities. This elicited from British officials the rather negative invitation to
carry on.
The British are
an insular people and while they are kind and courteous, it is my impression,
rightly or wrongly, that they could not in the long run feel overly cordial or
sympathetic towards an individual bearing the name I do. The great expense the
English legal procedure demands in changing my name, is only a possible
solution not within my financial means. At the same time I have not been
successful in determining whether the Canadian Army would facilitate my
entrance into the armed forces. As things are at the present and lacking any
official guidance, I find that to attempt to enlist as a nephew of Hitler is
something that requires a strange sort of courage that I am unable to muster,
bereft as I am of any classification or official support from any quarter.
As to my integrity,
Mr. President, I can only say that it is a matter of record and it compares
somewhat to the foresighted spirit with which you, by every ingenuity known to
statecraft, wrested from the American Congress those weapons which are today
the Nation's great defense in this crisis. I can also reflect that in a time of
great complacency and ignorance I tried to do those things which as a Christian
I knew to be right. As a fugitive from the Gestapo I warned France through the
press that Hitler would invade her that year. The people of England I warned by
the same means that the so-called "solution" of Munich was a myth
that would bring terrible consequences. On my arrival in America I at once
informed the press that Hitler would loose his Frankenstein on civilization
that year. Although nobody paid any attention to what I said, I continued to
lecture and write in America. Now the time for writing and talking has passed
and I am mindful only of the great debt my mother and I owe to the United
States. More than anything else I would like to see active combat as soon as
possible and thereby be accepted by my friends and comrades as one of them in
this great struggle for liberty.
Your favorable
decision on my appeal alone would ensure that continued benevolent spirit on
the part of the American people, which today I feel so much a part of. I most
respectfully assure you, Mr. President, that as in the past I would do my
utmost in the future to be worthy of the great honour I am seeking through your
kind aid, in the sure knowledge that my endeavors on behalf of the great
principles of Democracy will at least bear favourable comparison to the
activities of many individuals who for so long have been unworthy of the fine
privilege of calling themselves Americans. May I therefore venture to hope, Mr.
President, that in the turmoil of this vast conflict you will not be moved to
reject my appeal for reasons which I am in no way responsible?
For me today
there could be no greater honour, Mr. President, to have lived and to have been
allowed to serve you, the deliverer of the American people from want, and no
greater privelege then to have striven and had a small part in establishing the
title you once will bear in posterity as the greatest Emancipator of suffering
mankind in political history.
I would be most
happy to give any additional information that might be required and I take the
liberty of enclosing a circular containing details about myself.
Permit me, Mr.
President, to express my heartfelt good wishes for your future health and
happiness, coupled with the hope that you may soon lead all men who believe in
decencey everywhere onward and upward to a glorious victory.
I am,
Very respectfully yours,
Patrick Hitler
