[Audio History] 1945-01-06 FDR Fireside Chat On Battle Of The Bulge
“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States…
Today in pursuance of my constitutional duty, I sent to the Congress a message on the State of the Union, and this evening I am taking the opportunity to repeat to you some parts of that message:
This war must be waged, it is being waged, to the greatest and most insistent intensity. Everything we are, everything we have, is at stake. Everything we are, and have, will be given. We have no question of the ultimate victory, we have no question of the cost. Our losses will be heavy, but we and our allies will go on fighting together to total victory.
We have seen a year marked on the whole by substantial progress toward victory, even though the year ended with a setback for our arms. When the Germans launched a ferocious counterattack into Luxembourg and Belgium with the obvious objectives of cutting our line in the center.
Our men have fought with indescribable and unforgettable gallantry under most difficult conditions. The high tide of this German attack was reached two days after Christmas. Since then we have reassumed the offensive. We have rescued the isolated garrison at Bastogne and forced a German withdrawal along most of the line of the salient.
The speed with which we have recovered from this savage attack was possible primarily because we have one supreme commander in complete control of all the allied armies in France. General Eisenhower has faced this period of trial with admirable calm and resolution and is steadily increasing success.”
This the text of the first 2 minutes of the fireside chat given by Franklin D. Roosevelt after he delivered his State of the Union to Congress on 06 January 1945 covering the war and the Battle of the Bulge.
(Transcribed by S. Terjeson)
