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Gen. Eisenhower with German children, 1951
Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower gives a friendly smile to three German youngsters who were watching as the SHAPE commander's Jeep drove past their elementary school. Eisenhower was inspecting French troops taking part in Operation Jupiter, an exercise in which an allied force of 150,000 men and 30,000 vehicles crossed the Rhine River. In the back seat is Lt. Col. (later Gen.) Vernon Walters, Eisenhower's translator, who would go on to become U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and West Germany and deputy director and acting director of the CIA, among many other accomplishments. In his book The Stars and Stripes: World War II & The Early Years, former Stripes editor Ken Zumwalt identified the three boys as Roland Imhof, Guenter Koop and Guenter Kohlross. In 1983, the German newspaper Bild Zeitung tracked them down and interviewed them.
"We immediately recognized Gen. Eisenhower when the jeep stopped," recalled Imhof, who was working as a technician at a hotel in 1983. "We were always seeing him in German newsreels. So we knew who he was. He asked how we were and an American took the photographs." The photographer wasn't exactly an American, though. Henry Toluzzi was a Swiss army veteran who joined Stars and Stripes after working for the U.S. Army Special Services. Zumwalt reported that Toluzzi later worked for NBC News and eventually retired to life on a boat in Australian waters.
Gen. Eisenhower with German children, 1951
Gen Dwight D. Eisenhower gives a friendly smile to three German youngsters who were watching as the SHAPE commander's Jeep drove past their elementary school. Eisenhower was inspecting French troops taking part in Operation Jupiter, an exercise in which an allied force of 150,000 men and 30,000 vehicles crossed the Rhine River. In the back seat is Lt. Col. (later Gen.) Vernon Walters, Eisenhower's translator, who would go on to become U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and West Germany and deputy director and acting director of the CIA, among many other accomplishments. In his book The Stars and Stripes: World War II & The Early Years, former Stripes editor Ken Zumwalt identified the three boys as Roland Imhof, Guenter Koop and Guenter Kohlross. In 1983, the German newspaper Bild Zeitung tracked them down and interviewed them.
"We immediately recognized Gen. Eisenhower when the jeep stopped," recalled Imhof, who was working as a technician at a hotel in 1983. "We were always seeing him in German newsreels. So we knew who he was. He asked how we were and an American took the photographs." The photographer wasn't exactly an American, though. Henry Toluzzi was a Swiss army veteran who joined Stars and Stripes after working for the U.S. Army Special Services. Zumwalt reported that Toluzzi later worked for NBC News and eventually retired to life on a boat in Australian waters.