‘The greatest American friend we have ever known’

Abstract

On 25 March 1945, in a meeting at Montgomery’s headquarters, Churchill told Eisenhower that he thought the Allied forces ought to make a definite effort to beat the Russians to Berlin and hold as much of eastern Germany as possible ‘until my doubts about Russia’s intentions had been cleared away’. Churchill wanted Eisenhower to start thinking less about the Germans and more about the Russians. With the full backing of his political masters in Washington, who believed firmly in the possibilities for postwar cooperation with the Soviet Union, Eisenhower resisted such a switch. Militarily, he was preoccupied with the need finally to eradicate the resistance of the Wehrmacht in the German redoubts in the Alps.