1945.02.17 “A Pretty Shaky Ladder of Success”
by Stan MacGovern (1903-1975)
11 x 14 in., pen on paper
Coppola Collection

MacGovern was best known for his comic strip “Silly Milly” which ran in the New York Post from the 1930s into the 1950s. McGovern also drew editorial cartoons for the Post, and he was included in a 2004 exhibit, “Cartoonists Against the Holocaust: Art in the Service of Humanity,” sponsored by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Silly Milly, which had limited syndication, came to an end in 1951. MacGovern left the newspaper field to run a gift shop on Long Island. It was an unsuccessful business, and he later worked at a Long Island furniture store. In 1975, at the age of 72, he committed suicide.

One of those lovely cartoons that represents a clear narrative. Hilter’s climb to his summit, taking eastern Europe as his open “living space,” to create a vast German empire, was (by the end of the war) fraught with failure.

By early 1944, having suffered hundreds of thousands of deaths fighting the Soviet Union, and with the front lines approaching its own cities, Hungary was ready to exit World War II. Hitler preemptively sent in occupying troops in March, but by October the Red Army was massing a huge offensive. Adolf Hitler declared Budapest a fortress city (Festung Budapest), which was to be defended to the last man… and Stalin set his sights on taking the city as a way to demonstrate his strength to FDR and Churchill. The final battle started on Christmas eve, and by early February the Soviets had control of the city, and then the country. Two months later, in April, Vienna fell.

1939.10.17 “The Boys May Get a Real Fight Started Yet”
unattributed
11 x 15 in, ink on board
Coppola Collection

The “Phoney War” was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany’s Saar district. The Phoney period began with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939 and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on May 10, 1940.

The period of inactivity of the French and British troops was used by the Wehrmacht for the occupation of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Poland.  In the Saar Offensive in September, the French attacked Germany with the intention of assisting Poland, but it fizzled out within days and they withdrew.

1941.09.24 “No Harm Can Come to Thee”
by Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
15 x 22 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Ralph Lee was an editorial cartoonist for the Portland Oregonian. He died suddenly, at 41, in January 1947. His cousin, Art Bimrose, was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. Following Lee’s death, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist.

Still entrenched in isolationism just 3 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Senator Burton Wheeler sings a soothing and ineffective lullaby to Uncle Sam, who sees the nearby peril of Adolph Hitler, peering in. An ardent New Deal liberal until 1937, Wheeler broke with FDR on the issue of packing the United States Supreme Court. In foreign policy, he became a leader of the non-interventionist wing of the party, fighting against entry into World War II.

1944.12.07 “War Birthday Cake”
by Cyrus Cotton “Cy” Hungerford (1889-1983)
13 x 16 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cy_Hungerford

Hungerford worked for the Wheeling (West VA) Register before becoming editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Sun for fifteen years from 1912. He joined the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 1927 and stayed there until his retirement in 1977.

On the second anniversary of the US entry into WW2, things had been moving in favor of the Allies. On June 6, the D-Day invasion ultimately led to the liberation of Paris in late August.

Hitler’s June troubles were compounded by a Russian counterattack, which drove 300 miles west to Warsaw, and killed, wounded or captured 350,000 German soldiers. By the end of August, the Russians had taken Bucharest. Estonia was taken within months, and Budapest was under siege by the end of the year.

One glimmer of light for Germany came in the Ardennes, in France, where the December 16 German counteroffensive – the Battle of the Bulge – killed 19,000 Americans and delayed the Allies’ march into Germany.

1942.06.17 “Well?…”
by C Berger (unknown)
13 x 22 in., ink and crayon on textured paper
Coppola Collection

No luck to date tracking down the artist “C Berger”… the art is nice with deep darks and big, bold lines.

Between June 16 and November 4, 1942, Maxwell had been commanding general of United States Army Forces in the Middle East, one of two U.S. Army commands in the Africa-Middle East Theater. Lieutenant General Frank M. Andrews superseded him on November 4. A month later Andrews told the chief of staff that Maxwell had “done a fine job” and that he had “vision and executive ability. . . The fly in the ointment is his morale which suffered a serious blow by reason of his loss of command of our forces in the Middle East.

On June 16, 1942, General Russell L. Maxwell was placed in command of the newly formed U.S. Army Forces in the Middle East (USAFIME), a unified program that was created to replace both the North African Mission in Cairo and the Iranian Mission in the Persian Corridor. American air troops arrived on June 25, after which time missions began against the Axis forces, particularly against the weakened supply lines into the region.

The U.S. Army’s Egypt–Libya Campaign ended in February 1943, when the Allied forces finally succeeded in driving all Axis forces out of Libya.

1939.07.29 “The Stargazers See an Omen in the Comet”
by Max P. Milians (1907-2005)
11 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Milians signed his cartoons with nine zeros (“millions”) as an underline. His work was syndicated across America from the 1930s up until the 1970s.

The 35P/Herschel–Rigollet is a periodic comet with an orbital period of 155 years. The quasi-mystic and mythic stories of a comet that was easily visible with field glasses, in late July of 1939, is combined here with the emerging trouble in Europe.

A sense of destiny is a clear part of the dictatorial spirit. They are not only sure they are on the right side of history; they are fated to be history, fulfilling a master plan and its duty.

In January 1936, Mussolini told a German envoy of how Nazi Germany and fascist Italy shared “a common destiny.” Mussolini described them as the ‘axis’ around which Europe would revolve.

The Pact of Steel (May 1939, also recorded as the “Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy”) was the formalization of the military and political alliance between Italy and Germany.

There is another full drawing on the back of this (see elsewhere), that comes from the same time period.

1939.07 “No Wonder They Hate Dictators”
by Max P. Milians (1907-2005)
11 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

Milians signed his cartoons with nine zeros (“millions”) as an underline. His work was syndicated across America from the 1930s up until the 1970s.

A schoolboy’s remorse during the action of land-grabbing, power-mad dictators: you cannot keep up with your geography lessons because these guys keep redrawing the maps.

In the lead-up to WW2, the German-Italian alliance started moving their pieces around on the chessboard. Danzig and Czechoslovakia starting in March, Italian threats against Greece and the invasion and appropriation of Albania in April.

This piece was probably not published. It is located on the backside of a July 1939 drawing commemorating the fate and destiny of the alliance between Hitler and Mussolini.