1942.11.14 “How quick can you get to the Brenner Pass?”
by Carl Rose (1903-1971)
11.25 x 9.5 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection
Carl Rose was one of the cartooning mainstays within the pages of the New Yorker.
He also worked for a number of other national publications.
Hitler is on the phone with Mussolini, saying, “Hello! Hello! Benito?... How quick can you get to Brenner Pass?”
The Brenner Pass is an historic gateway though the Alps, and the location where Hitler and Mussolini met twice, in 1938 and 1940, to affirm their alliance. It became known as The Place Where Fascists Meet.
The reference here is metaphorical, perhaps a longing for the glory days of meetings and pronouncements.
In November 1942, the Germans, who had tried to salvage the Italian invasion of North Africa, were pressed back by the Allies. Germany was spread far too thin for the combined threats from all sides, and the Axis hold on Africa was about to be lost.
On November 10, Churchill speaks: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
