“The tragedy is like nothing I can imagine.”

More from Ima’s August 4 cable about leaving Germany:

We bade goodbye, ourselves, to many stalwart, handsome fellows. The tragedy is like nothing I can imagine. In Bremen, everything seemed suspended -- people gathered in small groups -- in hushed voices, talking eagerly. Here [in London], it is the same.

         On August 5 Germany invaded Belgium. 

         On August 25 Ima wrote: Poor Germany--my heart just aches for her. Anybody who knows Germany and the Germans is bound to sympathize.

          

         Ima Hogg knew Germany well, and so did many other Americans. As children Ima and her brothers had learned German prayers at the knee of their mother’s Bavarian maid. As an aspiring concert pianist, Ima had recently spent nearly two years studying piano in Berlin. She may have met the love of her life there. Since 1908 she had returned twice to Germany, once with her brother Mike--who would soon return to Germany under quite different circumstances.

        

         The United States was still neutral in this war, but that would not last.