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Exceptionally rare menu from General George S. Patton’s 60th birthday celebration at the Spa Hotel in Bad Nauheim, Germany, on November 11, 1945, 7.75 x 10, featuring colorful hand-decorated borders, four-star rank, and unit insignia designs, neatly signed in ink by the gala’s guest of honor, “G. S. Patton, Jr.,” and 18 other attendees, which includes Robert B. Patterson, recently elevated to Secretary of War; Hobart R. Gay, Patton's Chief-of Staff; Paul D. Harkins, deputy Chief-of-Staff and later Vietnam-era commander; Geoffrey Keyes, and Thomas H. Nixon. In fine condition.
Patton’s 60th birthday dinner celebration was an all-day affair, a combination reunion and bon voyage, with Patton celebrating with his old comrades of the Third and Seventh Armies before his scheduled journey home to the U. S. on December 10, 1945. This birthday dinner marks a rare happy moment in the tumultuous final chapter of Patton's life. Just five weeks earlier, in September, Eisenhower stripped him of his roles as Third Army commander and military governor of Bavaria after Patton likened Nazi party members to Democrats and Republicans back home. Ike put him in charge of the Fifteenth Army, which was responsible for compiling a military history of the war. Patton was ill-suited for these duties. He opposed Washington's denazification policy and thought the Americans should maintain high troop levels in Europe in preparation for a possible war with Soviet Russia. With no transfer to a Pacific command forthcoming, he just wanted to say goodbye and head home. It was a trip he never made. A truck struck his jeep on December 9th, breaking his neck and paralyzing him. He lingered in a Heidelberg hospital before dying on December 21st.
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