The most common type of leaflet leaflet during the war is a prisoner pass for enemy soldiers. Special artillery shells, aerial bombs, and rifle grenades were used to deliver leaflets to enemy soldiers.

German leaflets with a capture pass for Soviet soldiers are widely known. But our propagandists did not remain in debt. At the beginning of the war, Russian passes did not work - the Germans were successfully advancing, and appeals to class consciousness, the call to turn arms against the exploiters were not perceived by the Germans, who considered themselves representatives of a nation, and not a certain social class. But Soviet propagandists knew how to learn from their mistakes. After the first defeats on the Eastern Front, passes were finally earned. We present to your attention a small selection of little-known Soviet leaflets for Wehrmacht soldiers.

German soldiers are informed about the winter defeat of the Wehrmacht near Moscow. On the reverse side there is a standard captivity pass. A curious password is in Russian, which the Germans who decide to surrender must shout: Farewell Moscow! Down with Hitler!

On the leaflet in the background are Tyrolean partisans from the Napoleonic Wars. In the foreground is a Soviet partisan. The text reads: What do you say when you look at their faces? Soviet peasants are doing the same, fighting for the honor and freedom of their homeland.

And this Soviet leaflet tells German soldiers on the Eastern Front that their comrades suffered a crushing defeat in Libya. Map of the theater of military operations, a detailed story of what happened in this theater. On the reverse side of the leaflet is a statement of the fact that a war on two fronts will not lead Germany to anything good and a call to surrender.

And this leaflet informs German soldiers about the imminent opening of a second front.

A series of leaflets about how well captured Germans were in the Soviet rear:

Generals don't die, they surrender. Do the same. Comments are unnecessary; it sounds convincing.

The wife of a wounded soldier is being groped by an SS man in the rear. An attempt to quarrel between the Wehrmacht and the SS troops.

This leaflet tells the Germans that total mobilization is happening in their rear, the Italian allies have gone home, and the Germans are plugging all the holes at the front.

“This is what total mobilization is.? Goebbels has fun with girls, and elderly women are sent as slaves to factories” (although instead of elderly German women, slaves stolen from occupied countries worked in German factories; the use of slave labor allowed the Germans to carry out total mobilization).

The dead speak to the living. “Comrades, no matter where you are in the trench, in the dugout, at the post, we will relentlessly follow you, the shadows of Stalingrad.”

With Hitler the war will never end

2019-01-10 | 1116

On October 27, 1942, the newspaper “Boevoy Put” published the article “The Germans are cutting up prisoners and drinking their blood.” Already on November 19, 1942, Soviet military censorship decided that using this article for anti-fascist propaganda was too much.

Filmstrip "Saboteur from Jupiter", 1960

2018-07-04 | 845

Soviet filmstrip, 1960. Brief summary of the film: American militarists create a secret missile base, a series of mysterious deaths begins in the camp - the officers are hiding, the soldiers are putting forward a counter plan. The outcome is unexpected, but materialistically justified.

A visual aid to the racial theory taught in the Third Reich

2017-04-05 | 6718

Hans Friedrich Karl Günther, a German anthropologist and eugenicist, had a serious influence on the racial policies of the German National Socialists with his scientific work. In Germany, during lessons on racial theory, they used his teaching aids, which presented drawings of representatives of various “races” and “subraces”.

Letter from the partisans of the Pinsk region to Hitler

2017-02-23 | 3597

In early December 1942, the Germans issued a leaflet entitled “Listen, Partisan Ivan,” which insulted Soviet leaders and partisans. As a response to the German leaflet, a group of partisans from the headquarters of the Pinsk region unit wrote a letter addressed to Hitler.

Interview with Goebbels' secretary

2016-08-17 | 5883

105-year-old Brünnhilde Pomsel, former secretary to Joseph Goebbels, gave an interview to The Guardian. "This is one of the first - and probably the last - in-depth interviews of her life," says journalist Kate Connolly. Pomsel recalled that the Ministry of Propaganda had elegant furniture, and a carefree atmosphere reigned in the reception area next to Goebbels’s office, where six secretaries worked, including Pomsel herself.

The liberation of Europe from the Nazis in the cartoons of American Sergeant Bill Mauldin

2016-07-19 | 6245

On the night of July 9-10, 1943, the Allies landed in Italy - the liberation of Western Europe from Nazism began. Among those landing was Sergeant Bill Mauldin. He went through the entire war in Europe, drawing cartoons. Unlike ordinary propagandists, Mauldin did not ridicule the enemy, but joked about the hardships of war and army orders, showing the life of the front through the eyes of Willie and Joe - two simple "GIs", tired, ragged, but always ironic. The cartoons were published in his book "At the Front".

2016-07-16 | 7840

During World War II, the USSR's allies needed to explain to their citizens why their countries, together with the USSR, were fighting against Hitler, and propaganda posters were produced for these purposes. Allied propaganda was also aimed at Soviet citizens - posters were issued for them in Russian, telling about the contribution these countries were making to the victory over the common enemy.

Posters of foreign SS volunteer units

2016-04-24 | 12638

By June 1941, three volunteer regiments of foreign citizens were created in the ranks of the SS, and with the outbreak of hostilities, the number of foreign units began to grow steadily. According to Himmler, the participation of foreign legions in the war against the USSR was supposed to show the pan-European desire to destroy communism.

Political and literary propaganda

The need for propaganda in pre-war and wartime became immediately obvious - the Red Army needed to mobilize more and more forces, involving the population, counteract enemy propaganda in the occupied territories, stimulate patriotism among partisans, and even influence the enemy army with propaganda methods.

Famous Soviet posters and leaflets, radio broadcasts and broadcasts of recordings in enemy trenches became popular means of propaganda. Propaganda raised the morale of the Soviet people and forced them to fight more courageously.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army used revolutionary methods of psychological pressure on the enemy. From the loudspeakers installed at the front line, favorite hits of German music were heard, which were interrupted by messages about the victories of the Red Army in sections of the Stalingrad Front. But the most effective means was the monotonous beat of the metronome, which was interrupted after 7 beats by a comment in German: “Every 7 seconds one German soldier dies at the front.” At the end of a series of 10-20 “timer reports,” a tango sounded from the loudspeakers.

The decision to organize propaganda was made in the first days of the Great Patriotic War. The formation of images involved in propaganda was carried out by the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Department for Work with Enemy Troops of the Red Army.

Already on June 24, 1941, the Sovinformburo became responsible for propaganda on radio and in the press. In addition to military-political propaganda, there was also literary propaganda: the group that was created specifically to conduct propaganda and cover the combat life of Soviet soldiers included such famous writers as K.M. Simonov, N.A. Tikhonov, A.N. Tolstoy, A.A. Fadeev, K.A. Fedin, M.A. Sholokhov, I.G. Ehrenburg and many others. German anti-fascists also collaborated with them - F. Wolf, W. Bredel.

Soviet authors were read abroad: for example, Ehrenburg’s articles were distributed in 1,600 newspapers in the United States, and Leonov’s letter to “An Unknown American Friend” was listened to by 10 million overseas radio listeners. “All literature is becoming defensive,” said V. Vishnevsky.

The responsibility of writers was enormous - they had to not only show the qualities of the Soviet army and cultivate patriotism, but also use different approaches to influence different audiences. For example, Ehrenburg believed that “different arguments were required for the Red Army soldiers and the neutral Swedes.”

In addition to the exaltation of the Red Army, the Soviet people and the Allied forces, propaganda was also supposed to expose German troops, expose Germany's internal contradictions, and demonstrate the inhumanity of its attacks.

The USSR possessed the entire arsenal of methods of ideological struggle. Acting in the enemy’s camp, our propagandists did not use excessive communist rhetoric, did not denounce the church before the German population, and did not take up arms against the peasants.

Propaganda was mainly directed against Hitler and the NSDAP, and contrasts between the Fuhrer and the people were used.

The German command followed Soviet propaganda and saw that it was perfectly differentiated: “ she speaks in folk, soldier and specific local expressions, appeals to primary human feelings, such as fear of death, fear of battle and danger, longing for his wife and child, jealousy, longing for his homeland. All this is contrasted with the transition to the side of the Red Army...».

Political propaganda knew no limits: Soviet propaganda directed at the enemy not only denounced the injustice of the war, but also appealed to the vast lands of Russia, the cold weather, and the superiority of the Allied forces. Rumors were spread at the front, targeting all layers of society - peasants, workers, women, youth, and intelligentsia. However, the propaganda also had common elements - the image of the fascist enemy.

Image of the enemy

The image of the enemy at all times and in all countries is formed approximately the same way - it is necessary to separate the world of good, kind people who fight exclusively for the good, and the world of “non-humans” who are not a pity to kill in the name of future peace on earth.

If the National Socialist (and not fascist) bodies of Germany used the term “subhuman,” then in the USSR the word “fascist” became such a common bogeyman.

Ilya Erenburg outlined the task of propaganda in this way: “We must tirelessly see before us the image of a Hitlerite: this is the target at which we must shoot without missing, this is the personification of what we hate. Our duty is to incite hatred of evil and strengthen the thirst for the beautiful, the good, the just.”

The word “fascist” instantly became synonymous with an inhuman monster who kills everyone and everything in the name of evil. The fascists were portrayed as soulless rapists and cold murderers, barbarians and rapists, perverts and slave owners.

If the courage and strength of the Soviet fighters were extolled, the forces of Germany's allies were contemptuously criticized: “In the Donbass, the Italians are surrendering - they don’t need leaflets, they are driven crazy by the smell of our camp kitchens.”

Soviet people were portrayed as kind and peace-loving in non-war times, but during the war they instantly managed to become heroes, destroying heavily armed professional fascist killers with their bare fists. And, importantly, the Nazis and Krauts were not killed - they were only destroyed.

The well-oiled machine of Soviet propaganda was quite flexible: for example, the very image of the enemy changed several times. If from 1933 until the beginning of World War II a discourse was formed between the images of the innocent German people and the insidious Nazi government, then in May 1941 the anti-fascist connotations were eliminated.

Of course, after June 22 they returned and the propaganda was launched with renewed vigor. Another cardinal turn noted by the German propaganda organs was the mobilization of spiritual reserves in 1942-1944.

It was at that time that Stalin began to encourage previously condemned communist values: traditionalism, nationality, churchism.

In 1943, Stalin allowed the election of a new Moscow Patriarch, and the church became another patriotic propaganda tool. It was at that time that patriotism began to be combined with pan-Slavic themes and motives of helping fellow Slavs. “By changing the political and ideological line and the slogan “Expel the German occupiers from your native land and save the Fatherland!” Stalin achieved success,” wrote the Germans.

USSR about allies

The military propaganda of the Soviet Union did not forget about the allied countries, relations with which were not always the most idyllic. First of all, the allies appeared in propaganda materials as friends of the Soviet people, cheerful and selfless fighters. The material support provided by the allied forces of the USSR was also praised: American stew, powdered eggs and British pilots in Murmansk. Polevoy wrote about the Allied forces: “Russians, British, Americans, this is a mountain. He who tries to break a mountain with his head breaks his head...”

Propaganda was also carried out among the population of the allied countries: Soviet delegations were given instructions on how to form a positive image of the USSR, how to convince the allies of the need to open a Second Front, etc.

Soviet realities were often compared with American ones: “The battle for the Volga is the battle for the Mississippi. Have you done everything to protect your native, your wonderful river, American,” Fedin wrote.

The motive of cosmopolitanism and all-conquering friendship of peoples was predominant in allied propaganda aimed at the USA, England and France, while at home these terms were not always given the same role. Despite the fact that immediately after World War II, the old anti-Western cliches in Soviet propaganda revived again, posters were drawn and songs were composed: for example, the jazz song “James Kennedy” told about the heroic British in the Arctic.

Studying the posters created by artists of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War, it is difficult not to notice that they are distinguished by a special attitude to the reality being displayed, an increased desire to show life as it is, as much as the genre allows. We are talking not only about the “trench truth”, the desire for which, by the way, was also characteristic of Russian posters from the First World War, but about the fact that even the actual heroes of Soviet posters are taken from life, they appear not as abstract characters, but as ordinary people, sometimes anger and grief make their faces ugly from the point of view of generally accepted canons. In the works of Soviet poster artists you can often see ordinary soldiers, women workers, and old people in the rear. It is noteworthy that on one of the most famous posters of the Great Patriotic War, “The Motherland is Calling!” the prototype of this strong collective image was the wife of the artist I. Toidze. He remembered well the expression on her face at the moment when she ran into his workshop and told him that the war had begun. This fact is interesting primarily because the artist’s wife was a beauty in life, but on the poster we see a stern, angry face, absolutely devoid of beauty, i.e. the artist was only concerned with the inner truth of the image.

This trend is largely due to the influence of socialist realism: the masters of this art direction consciously brought their visuals closer to the realities surrounding ordinary people in the country. More convincing is a visual campaign that shows something familiar and is based on reliable facts. For example, V. Koretsky’s poster “Strike like this: no matter what the cartridge is, the enemy!” (1943) depicts a real hero who became famous during the Battle of Stalingrad - sniper Vasily Zaitsev (later the ship was named after him).
A completely different approach to depicting reality was characteristic of American poster artists. Here is one of the fairly famous posters of that time: “Become a nurse! Your country needs you!” Uncle Sam - this national symbol was used quite often by US artists - puts a cap on a pretty nurse, who looks at him with genuine admiration. A kind of “dedication”. It is interesting that the poster was created using a colorized photograph, but nevertheless it has a distant relationship to the realities of life. It is worth noting the girl’s especially “civilian” appearance: perfect hairstyle, skillfully made-up face, ironed clothes. In this form, not for nurses, but rather for the podium.
A similar Soviet poster looks completely different, and the call itself is somewhat different, not abstract: “Join the ranks of your front-line friends, the warrior is a fighter’s assistant and friend!” The poster is created in a similar technical manner: using a photograph placed on a hand-drawn background, but who cares! At the work of the Soviet artist there are real people with whom it is easy for everyone to identify, and not specially selected models with impeccable hairstyles. The difference in the slogans is also noteworthy - in the Soviet one they are called to serve not for the sake of the mythical Uncle Sam or even in the name of the Motherland - the posters appeal to the collectivist beginning of the self-awareness of the Russian person, offering to join the military brotherhood. It is also worth noting the dynamics of the poster and the excellent use of contrast between the red accents on the flag and letters and the black and white main image.

Medical care is expensive.
Buy war bonds."
A. Treidler (USA)

For German poster artists, the situation with the technical approach to creating visual propaganda was somewhat different: they resorted to photomontage much less often (which is strange, because in Germany there was no shortage of good photographic film and photographic equipment), and the image itself was distinguished by a kind of schematism, the artists clearly did not strive to realistically draw the heroes of their works. Among the advantages of this approach is greater emotionality. Portraits painted with large strokes did not allow one to concentrate on details while remaining expressive. They are somewhat reminiscent of modern graffiti. So, on the poster “Woman in the Air Defense Forces” we see a woman in military uniform depicted in exactly this manner, with a swastika sign behind her. It is interesting that on the poster there are no planes, no bombs, no explosions - all that is associated with work during air raids. On the contrary, the service is presented as a parade. The ideal woman serves in the ideal air defense forces - something similar, as already mentioned, is often found on American posters (although the style of writing is noticeably different) and almost never on Soviet ones.
The artists of the fighting USSR did not try to present an important fact - military service - as a parade or something beautiful. The appeal was primarily to the feeling of noble anger of the people. Very typical examples of poster art are “The blood of Leningraders calls for revenge!” or “Fighter, Ukraine is waiting for you!”, “Fighter, free from fascist oppression!” and many others. The posters truthfully depicted the horrors of war and occupation. The heroes of their works were wounded soldiers (the artists were not afraid to paint a battlefield with defeated enemies) and their courage, much less common in the works of their colleagues from the West. In the United States, where the war caused immeasurably less damage, posters with this kind of illustrations can be found in government bond advertising campaigns; they appealed to pity and depicted soldiers suffering from wounds or victims of war left homeless, but in general, even on such posters the prevailing sentiments expressed were in the slogan of a British creation during the First World War: “You buy the bonds, we will do the rest.” American posters were not so straightforward. “If you can’t go, buy war bonds,” a World War II poster exhorted them.

"Victory with our banners!" (Germany)

The remoteness of the theater of operations from the places where Americans lived is associated with an element of “fantasticity,” “fabulousness” of some subjects in the works of overseas artists. For example, on Soviet posters, state symbols do not act as active participants in the action. Stars, a hammer and sickle may be depicted on some fragments of the poster (as, for example, on Nikolai Dolgorukov’s poster “There will be no mercy for the enemy!” (1941), where state symbols are painted on aerial bombs), but it is difficult to find a place where It is not the man himself who enters the battle. However, this is not uncommon in American and Nazi works. On US posters of those times, a common plot was with the symbol of America - Uncle Sam. Thus, on the famous poster from the “Buy War Bonds” series, the mythical character even acts as a deity. Uncle Sam, like Zeus, pops out from behind the clouds, carries an American flag and sternly points his finger at whoever is looking at the poster. Infantry is running under him to attack, planes are flying above him. The poster artists also played up the image of the eagle, the official bird of the United States and Germany; on the posters, eagles fly in the same formation as airplanes, attacking the enemy.

Who looks like whom?

During the Great Patriotic War, the world for people in creative professions was already global. Regular accusations of the USSR being similar to Hitler's Germany on the basis that some elements of propaganda were similar lead the discussion down the wrong path. The fact is that with a careful comparison of the most characteristic depiction techniques and their diversity, one can quickly conclude that the visual propaganda of the USSR has more in common with its counterparts in the USA.
In both countries there is a fairly large stylistic and subject variety of works (from caricatures to avant-garde painting styles), the techniques are also similar. In the Third Reich, a very characteristic style of poster execution prevailed; there were not such a variety of drawing methods as in the USSR and the USA. Above, using the example of a poster by L. Hohlwein, we already spoke about the features of this style. This “monotony” is connected both with the incredibly limited number of performers (only Hohlwein and Mjolner are widely known), and with the peculiarities of the ideology of Nazism. These features can be explained as follows.

"
German victory - European freedom (Germany)

Firstly, in Germany at that time it was extremely difficult to imagine a Jew in a position related to propaganda, while in the Soviet Union and in the States many successful artists were Jews. They were cosmopolitans, globalists, which allowed them to navigate world trends well.
Secondly, fascism in general and its German interpretation in particular are prone to an idealistic type of culture (according to P. Sorokin). This is a “transitional” type between the strictly ideational, characteristic of the Middle Ages (in Europe), when all cultural life was inseparable from religion, and the sensual, in which the attention of creators is primarily drawn to empirically knowable phenomena and facts. Only the “ideational” part of this culture among the German fascists is neo-pagan (usually in the late Russian Empire and other European countries it was Christian). By that time, the USSR and the USA had an established sensory type of culture. This explains some of the features noted above, including poster agitation and propaganda of the Third Reich, since German neo-pagans sought to raise superhuman Aryans, enter into a supersensible connection with the spirits of ancestors and ancient German gods, receiving from them the power to carry out their plans.
The style of poster propaganda was also influenced by the artistic heritage of the three countries. Expressive, but strict and laconic execution of German posters, which in the First World War was emphasized by the traditional Gothic font; American posters, stylistically closely related to the traditions of commercial advertising; Soviet, retaining the desire for “trench truth” and some artistic techniques of pre-revolutionary Russian posters.
It is also worth paying attention to the similar plots and layout approaches of poster artists from all three countries. It is precisely such posters that often mislead non-specialists, who use them to draw parallels between ideologies. The observed similarities are based on archetypes and psychologically justified, but are largely explained by the fact that the artists adopted the experience of their colleagues by studying their work.

Who will come to us with a sword,
He will die by the sword!"
V. Ivanov, O. Burova (USSR)

These were posters with an “epic knight” or (depending on the country) a “superman”, the main character of which served as the personification of strength, courage, valor, as well as works depicting heroes in profile (this is how artists showed the mass character of the people’s impulse), posters carrying out historical parallels (the Nazis actively used a similar technique in countries that they considered “Aryan”, for example in Denmark and Norway). One could list for a long time examples of similarities in the works of artists from three countries (for example, posters with a fist crushing an enemy, a bayonet or a tank, soldiers going into an attack, wounded soldiers, nurses), there will be differences, of course, but in the details.
It can be argued that the plots and layout of posters by the time of World War II had already been established among the leading countries. Noticeable differences were in individual writing features and prevailing plots. Thus, in the USA, poster artists very often depicted women on posters (even in those areas of life where they are usually in the minority); a significant part of their posters do not appeal to righteous anger or pride, but to sympathy, since they are dedicated to fundraising. The influence of advertising also affected the prevailing idealization of images, as, for example, on the recruitment poster of H. Hayden, which makes us recall the paintings of our artist A. Deineka.
The visual propaganda of the Soviet Union was artistically highlighted by the active use of photomontage, as well as rhyming slogans. This feature—the massive presence of poetry on posters—is unique to the USSR. This tradition originates in the post-revolutionary “Windows of GROWTH”, created, among other things, by the great poet V. Mayakovsky, and in older posters of the Russian Empire.

Political context

Visual agitation and propaganda are a kind of “barometer” of politics, a kind of indicator of the mood of society, and also demonstrate temporal changes. Thus, the bravura posters of Germany at the beginning of the war were replaced by much less joyful calls. In Soviet posters during the war one can see the opposite trend: from gloomy works of the early forties to festive ones dedicated to the end of the war and Victory.
The “national question” also found a place on the posters. However, if the Germans mainly blamed the Jews for the beginning of the war and conducted the same type of propaganda against the “Aryan peoples” surrounding them, the USSR and the USA set a completely different task. Thus, poster artists in the United States released a whole series of posters, which can be entitled “United We Win”. The goal of the series was to show the role of blacks in production and military life, and to weaken prejudices in society. The series can be considered very successful, including because it addressed the personalities of real people: the hero of Pearl Harbor D. Miller and J. Louis, a famous boxer who joined the US Army.
It is appropriate to note that D. Miller was awarded the US Navy Cross only under pressure from the black press. This did not stop his personality from being used in propaganda. As for the USSR, against the backdrop of interethnic tensions in the other two countries, the peoples inhabiting it lived simply in perfect harmony. This was reflected in the wonderful poster by V. Koretsky “Samed goes to his death so that Semyon does not die...”.
Union relations were also specifically refracted through the prism of visual agitation and propaganda. Thus, US posters dedicated to the anti-Hitler coalition usually contain flags of many countries. In this way, an effect was achieved in which the role of the Soviet Union (by the way, on one such poster it is simply called “Russia”) in the struggle and victory over Nazi Germany was blurred in the public consciousness of citizens. On the other hand, this is how American messianism manifested itself, which since the time of US President William Wilson has been called Wilsonianism: the Americans sought to present the situation as if “free nations of the whole world” were marching in the same ranks with them. Things were different on USSR posters; our artists usually depicted only three flags: Soviet, American and British. The reason is also clear - countries were depicted that actually had an impact on the course of hostilities; the Soviet Union did not need to gloss over someone's role, unlike the United States. Particularly interesting is the poster “Europe will be free”, in which the swords of the allies cut the chain that fetters the European woman from different sides. The swords of the United States and Great Britain are, as it were, opposed to the sword of the USSR. Thus, V. Koretsky quite transparently hinted at how unstable the alliance with these countries actually is.

There is reason to assert that Soviet posters from the Great Patriotic War reached the pinnacle of poster art. Artists of the USSR actively adopted the best practices of their colleagues on both sides of the front, improving their own, and as a result, today researchers are presented with a truly remarkable collection of graphic works. The discoveries of Soviet artists had a significant impact on the development of visual propaganda, and not only in our country.
What is the secret of this success? Obviously, in great historical experience, in flexibility, in readiness to learn even from the enemy, but especially in the fact that Soviet poster artists experienced the war together with the entire country, with all its victims and heroes. They did not have the opportunity, like American artists, to draw their posters from the safety of an ocean, or, like German artists, to encourage the population of a state whose army was fighting far beyond its borders.
Nevertheless, the Soviet poster artists have in common with American poster artists a relative internationalism: among the famous artists of that time in the USSR there were representatives of a variety of nations. In Nazi Germany, such a “luxury” was not available for ideological reasons.
As for the visual and plot similarity of Soviet posters with German ones, on the basis of which far-reaching conclusions are sometimes drawn, one should not get carried away with comparisons of this kind, since similar posters and plots can be found in all three countries.
At the same time, German posters stand out for their unique writing style, which was preserved in posters created by completely different artists. The sharp, angular features of the faces of the “Aryans,” as if carved from stone, pass from poster to poster, making them incredibly recognizable. The same severity is inherent in the colors and lines of Nazi posters.
American posters, which are modified commercial advertising, made their own specific contribution to visual propaganda. The abundance of pretty girls on the posters, the active idealization of reality, advertising techniques that were very suitable for the purposes of many works - the popularization of war bond loans - all this emphasizes the main feature of that war for America: more business than war. At the same time, it was then that interesting works appeared that were destined to outlive their time for a long time.

Today, visual political propaganda in our country more often causes laughter than sincere emotions (when, for example, once again an “inexperienced designer” uses an “enemy” technique in a collage or makes a spelling and often stylistic error in a slogan). This is a sad trend, and changing it is our common task.
________________________________________ ________________ __________
Lovers of historical reading are invited to my new book of historical miniatures