1945.02.05 “Heel Hitler”
by John M Price (1918-2009)
11 x 14.5 in., ink on an onionskin paper overlay, with gray wash on illustration board
Coppola Collection

Philadelphia artist John M. Price (1918-2009), with whom I share a birthday, had cartoons published in Collier’s, Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, and The New Yorker (February 17, 1940, March 9, 1940, June 8, 1941, and August 30, 1941).

Stalin walking a dachshund dog, with the caption, “Heel, Hitler!”

By February 1945, as Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered again at Yalta, an Allied victory in Europe was on the horizon. Having liberated France and Belgium from Nazi occupation, the Allies now threatened the German border; to the east, Soviet troops had driven back the Germans in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and gotten within 40 miles of Berlin. This put Stalin at a distinct advantage during the meeting at the Black Sea resort, a location he himself had proposed after insisting his doctors had barred him from traveling long distances.