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War Propaganda and Humour: World War II German, British, and Soviet Cartoons
yanov, Porfiriy Krylov, and Nikolai Sokolov), and Boris Efimov;' two British (Da¬
vid Low and Ernest H. Shepard); and five German— Philipp Rupprecht alias Fips,
Erich Schilling, Arthur Johnson,” Hanns E. Köhler alias Erik, and Hans M. Lind¬
loff.
Invective
I will first address one of the two extremes of war propaganda—invective. This
form is unrelated to humour despite occasionally pretending to exploit humorous
means. When invective does so, it is called satire. In logical terms, the reference and
dictum of invective are always bona fide even when its modus is not, for instance,
when the message is intentionally false. In other words, in the case of invective, as
in the case of the lie, irony, and sarcasm, we always know who and what the mes¬
sage refers to, and what its ostensible meaning is (see Kozintsev 2010: 146-149).
The modus, which includes the truth parameter, belief or disbelief, is a different
matter. In practice, these notions are relevant only with regard to the recipients of
propaganda, not to its spreaders. Whether or not, for instance, Goebbels himself
believed what he said, the meaning of his speeches is clear to everyone.
The only country where mass indoctrination was openly declared to be the
cause, not the effect, of social changes was Nazi Germany (see Doob 1950). “We
could eliminate the Jewish danger in our culture because the people had recog¬
nized it as the result of our propaganda,” said Goebbels (2008 [1934]: 49). The
mouthpiece of Nazi anti-Semitism was Julius Streicher’s Stiirmer (‘Attacker’): “the
most infamous newspaper in history” (Bytwerk 2001: 51), whose sole illustrator
was Fips, “a cartoonist of outstanding crudity” (Ibid.: 56)°. Nearly all his linocuts
exploit the same theme, i.e. “Jewish danger” (Fig. 30).
Goebbels despised Streicher and Fips for their vulgarity. His favourite cartoon¬
ist was Erich Schilling, whose drawings, while also full of malicious energy, were
less paranoid and more sophisticated in both form and content.‘ Some of them are
sarcastic (Fig. 31) but almost none are humorous. A much cruder, in fact loath¬
some example of obscene metaphor in Nazi propaganda, opposing it to both Brit¬
ish and Soviet traditions (see below), is a cartoon by Arthur Johnson, motivated by
the sudden alliance between Britain and the USSR after 22 June 1941 and showing
the two nations as rutting dogs engaged in “dirty play” (Kladderadatsch (Tumult),
no. 27, July 6, 1941).
| Efimov’s real surname was Friedland.
2? This is a real name. Johnson's father was the US consul to Hamburg and his mother was German (see
Bryant 2013 for details about Nazi cartoonists; see also Bryant 1989, 2011; Plum 1998: 133-144; Tiffney
2009; Husband 2013).
> Streicher was hanged in 1946, and Fips-Rupprecht was sentenced to six years’ hard labour but was
pardoned in 1950.
* Schilling committed suicide on April 30, 1945, one day before Goebbels.
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