Page 110 [110]
OCR
108 Ágnes Tamás 1he Faces of the Enemy in the Two World Wars: A Comparative Analysis of German and Hungarian Caricatures In the interwar period the prevailing opinion both in Germany and in Hungary was that these countries did not lose the Great War on the battlefields but as a result of ineffective propaganda and press. For example, Adolf Hitler criticised the comic papers and also blamed them for losing WWI (1943: 198). Therefore, it is insightful to analyse the changes in the methods of the propaganda spread through caricatures, knowing that Germany and its ally, Hungary, subsequently lost WWII as well. In this chapter I examine the depiction of the enemy during the periods of the two World Wars (June 1914—June 1918; September 1939—September 1944), through the caricatures of comic papers and newspapers (during WWII Hungarian newspapers regularly published political caricatures). The German Kladderadatsch (‘Tumult’) was a national-liberal comic paper during World War I that became right wing during WWII; the Hungarian liberal Borsszem Janké (‘Johnny Peppercorn’) ceased publication after 1938. Thus I analyse WWUH through the right wing newspaper Magyarság (“Hungarianness), published until 1944, as was Kladderadatsch. In the last ycar of publication of Magyarság, the editors reprinted (with Hungarian translation) caricatures from Kladderadatsch—without the signature of the original caricaturist.' The nature of Kladderadatsch’s caricatures was determined by a small group of caricaturists, the most important of whom was Arthur Johnson, who drew caricatures throughout both world wars and became a convinced fascist during the 1930s. He perfected his method of distorting the features of the enemy in his drawings. Borsszem Janké also employed several famous artists, such as Dezsö Ber, Geza Zöräd or Jenö Feiks, but in Magyarsdg one cannot find any drawings of these leading caricaturists. It was during and after WWI, when, parallel with the examination of propaganda effects and application of propaganda by scholars and journalists, the opinion that the press has a great influence on people during the war (which is also reflected in the above-mentioned views held by Hitler) became pervasive (details see in Lasswell 1971). People then believed that the war could be won with well ' After the German occupation of Hungary (in March 1944) the coordination (Gleichschaltung) of the Hungarian press began immediately (VAsdrhelyi 1975: 40-43). Before March 1944 the editors of Magyarsdg had occasionally used caricatures from Kladderadatsch, but after May 1944 this became regular.
