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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 (David Low and Ernest H. Shepard); and five German— Philipp Rupprecht alias Fips, Erich Schilling, Arthur Johnson,” Hanns E. Köhler alias Erik, and Hans M. Lindloff. 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 message 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 recognized 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 cartoonist 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 loathsome example of obscene metaphor in Nazi propaganda, opposing it to both British 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. 85
