Oldal 114 [114]
112
Ágnes "Tamás
primarily through the successful general Paul von Hindenburg and his glorious
predecessor Otto von Bismarck (K, August 13, 1916). These symbolic figures and
heroic soldiers disappeared in the caricatures from WWH, when the only method
of propaganda was mockery of the enemy.
Ancient Gods Employed in War Propaganda
Since the object of the present analysis is wartime caricatures, it is not surpris¬
ing that we find the ancient personifications of war and peace, such as Mars the
god of war, Pax the goddess of peace, and the Christian symbols of peace (the
angel of peace and the dove) in the analysed caricatures. Mars was very popular
in Kladderadatsch in 1916-17 (Fig. 43), and later, in 1939, many drawings depict
Jewish journalists awakening the sleeping Mars. In 1940 the victorious Mars is
depicted (K, December 1, 1940) and in 1941 the love between Mars and Venus
appears (K, December 28, 1941). The male and female characters were personi¬
fied by males, for instance by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, or by
Churchill and Josef Stalin,° while ‘the Jews’ also sometimes appeared as a character
in a mocking love scene. Magyarsdg depicted the bloodthirsty Mars, connecting
the destruction caused by him with the money and war profits of the Jews (M, Au¬
gust 15, 1941). Finally, Mars appeared as death itself in both magazines (the Hun¬
garian magazine copied the idea of the caricature from Kladderadatsch: K, May 28,
1944; M, July 16, 1944).
The depiction of Pax became more and more popular between 1915 and 1918
in Kladderadatsch, because of the German peace offer (K, December 12, 1916)
and the peace negotiations with Russia (1917); however, no similar tendency can
be observed in Borsszem Janké. The symbols of peace appeared in two contexts:
the enemy stands in the way of peace and wants to continue the cruel war against
the will of Germany (BJ, February 13, 1916; K, January 2, 1916), and Woodrow
Wilson can be seen as a false angel of peace (Fig. 44; K, December 3, 1916). In
such caricatures Wilson has many weapons and loans money to the entente states
in order to continue the war (thus, not truly wanting to arrive at peace). Both
the German and the Hungarian propaganda celebrated the peace of Brest-Litovsk
(1918): the angel of peace finally found peace (BJ, March 10, 1918; K, January 13,
1918). Nevertheless, at the end of the war, Pax was depicted very differently: after
signing the truce in Compiegne (1918), “the fair angel of peace” trampled a Ger¬
man soldier to death. In this caricature the personification of peace no longer
has angelical features, it is more similar to a creature from hell (K, November 24,
1918). During WWII the symbols of peace disappeared from the pages of the
analysed magazines, although it has to be borne in mind that the analysed papers
were not published in the last year of the war. The caricaturists expressed the choice
° The effeminisation of an internal or external enemy is an old and often practiced strategy of mockery
in caricatures.