Nazi Posters During WWII

Nazi Poster depicting American "liberators" as monster.

This image is an example of Nazi propaganda during WWII, most of the propaganda in Germany was produced by the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. All journalists, writers, and artists were required to register with one of the Ministry’s subordinate chambers and the broadcasters and journalists required approval before their works were able to be distributed.. The Nazis believed in propaganda as a vital tool in achieving their goals. Adolf Hitler believed that propaganda had been the primary cause of the destruction of morale and revolts in the German home front

This image is a 1944 Nazi propaganda poster titled “LIBERATORS”, which perfectly symbolizes many reoccurring themes of anti-Americanism. There is many statements contained in the image such as “Miss America”, “Miss Victory”, “Ku Klux Klan”, and “World’s Most Beautiful Leg”. Also alongside the text are symbols with anti-Americanism context in the image such as reverse side of 48-star United States flad, WW2-era Army Air Corps roundel, dollar sign, Star of David. Along the bottom is a Dutch caption with reads: “De USA zullen de Europeesche Kultuur van den ondergang redden” meaning when translated something similar to “The USA will save European culture from decline”.

There are certain meanings depicted from the images and captions used in this poster to support the anti-Americanism theme presented by the Nazis. For example the immorality of beauty pageants with the captions “Miss America”, “Miss Victory”, and “The Worlds Most Beautiful Leg”, and more generally the alleged sexual laxness of American women, a theme which is present today. Also the poster shows gun violence in America with the monster having the arm of an escaped convict holding a machine gun. America’s issue with anti-black violence is also present in the lynching noose and a Ku Klux Klan hood.  Even the general violence of the American Society, with the boxing-glove that is grasping the money bag, meaning America is focused on money and violence. The poster is depicting every negative incident of America as if they still exist and the United States is a monster terrorizing the world, with its pure materialism or commercialism and to damage any spirit or soul. The image strongly shows the presence of African Americans in the U.S. population, and suggests its constituting a potential danger to the white race, this is present in the center of the monster is a black couple dancing in a bird cage, a degrading animalistic image. The more obvious images are the haphazard images of U.S. military violence, the bloodied bomb for foot, metal legs, military aircraft wings, the threatening of the cultural landmarks in the lower right hand corner; hence the falsity of American claims to be “Liberators”.

This poster holds a lot of hidden meaning but the techniques used are very specific. The first is the poster appeal to fear of the audience, to seek to build support by instilling anxieties and panic of America destroying all livelihoods in Europe. Another technique used is known as Big Lie, which is the representing of a complex of events that justify some sort of action. The Nazi’s released this image to justify their corruption of Germany and misrepresent the United States role during WWII. The descriptions of these events have elements of truth, and this specific technique’s generalizations merge and replace the public’s accurate perception of the events. Also a more obvious technique used by the Nazi’s is the demonizing the enemy, because the propaganda is formed by the Nazi’s the enemy in the poster is America, the image of the US is a monstrous machine that is destroying Europe and its culture, included in the image is specific examples of how the US is destroying culture, that are previously discussed.