How was historical imagery used in propaganda posters of the European powers of the Second World War?

Pat Keely, 1940-45. The National Archives (UK): INF 3-136

MA Thesis in History Jon Loftus Supervisor: Bart van der Boom Universiteit Leiden S2383616 June 2019

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Contents Introduction - 3 Chapter One: Propaganda Theory and Methodology of Poster Analysis - 10 Chapter Two: Ancient and Medieval Conflicts – 19 Chapter Three: Early-Modern and Modern Conflicts – 32 Chapter Four: Heroes, Ethno-nationalist Representations and Historical Individuals – 52 Conclusion – 69 Bibliography- 72 Poster List – 76

Acknowledgements Thanks to my friends and family who had to suffer me droning on about posters and the epistemic merit model for months on end. Particular thanks goes to my colleagues Heleen Wink, Anastasia Petrovskaya and Bertel Bertelsen, who translated captions from the many languages I cannot read. Vital proof reading and advice giving was done by Kyran Penny, Christopher Bull, Caragh Thomas, Suzanne Hutchinson and Tim Loftus. Special thanks must go to Laurie Venters, who discussed and advised on the writing of this thesis from its inception, while simultaneously completing his own. Finally, thanks to the archivists who put these posters online, without whom, this thesis would not exist.

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Introduction There was a common visual lexicon of historical imagery shared by the propaganda posters of the major European powers during the Second World War, that transcended their political and historic contradictions. The United Kingdom, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union all produced propaganda posters that used historical imagery. Posters showed victory in past wars and battles, heroic leaders and imagery from the past; such as swords, shields, ancient warships and religious iconography. Although the nations producing these images were very different, they all used history and historical imagery in strikingly similar ways. There are huge differences and variation in national histories and values between these powers, and yet they still used the past in comparable ways, independently of each other. Clearly, history served as a very useful source for propaganda, because it explicitly linked the state to the national identity of the audience. This thesis will show how history was used in wartime propaganda, and compare the use of historical posters between Britain, Germany and Russia. I show that all three used similar historical motifs, images of past victories (both ancient and more recent) as well as ethno-nationalist representations of populations to persuade their citizens. There were several standard forms of historical poster, of relatively universal design and structure deployed by the three powers. Furthermore, history was chosen and utilised in similar ways. Posters were structurally alike but used different aspects of history determined by national origin, which could then also be framed in different ways, depending on ideology. The three powers posters are alike in structure, and their use of similar examples of history that exalt the national past to manipulate their citizens. They all use recognisable motifs and characters to ensure the audience can relate. Images of the past were used to appeal to citizens, encouraging action or support in the present. There are three main types. The first type is posters that referenced conflicts from the distant past, their original meanings long since faded in favour of semi-mythical ideals that could be adapted for modernity. The second type are posters that called upon wars from the early-modern period, more well remembered in contemporary culture, as well as conflicts in living public memory. The third kind are posters that used historical figures or ethno-nationalist identities, individuals from folklore or history who embodied a nations values and peoples. Despite the wide variety of characters, events and references called upon, the three nation’s historical posters display numerous similarities. I will discuss and compare how each country used these types of poster, the history they chose to use, and the different messages they tried to convey. I aim to prove that historical posters were a transnational genre of propaganda and show how history served as an ideal tool of war. This thesis is a comparative study of historical imagery in the wartime posters of Britain, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the ‘Germanic’ Axis-occupied territories. The Nazi regime produced historical posters in the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, using the same features seen in German, Russian and British posters. Both fascist, democratic and communist nation states fighting in the Second World War used propaganda posters with figures or events from their respective national histories to buttress civilian morale, reinforce loyalty to the state and inspire soldiers to fight. The importance of state created images to people’s national self- conception is even more pronounced during wartime. I contend historic imagery is so prevalent because shared national histories were both the most emotive themes for the public that the state can access, and national mythology was something states could claim ownership of. Furthermore, Europe’s tumultuous history provided more than enough events with

3 parallels to the modern war that could be used in propaganda. These posters represent history as a tool of nation building in its most clear and prominent form. Posters were often the most direct link between citizens and the states they live in. The importance of visual sources in this period cannot be understated: in Britain the nostalgia for wartime posters has become a cottage industry, and the infamous photograph of the ‘Times Square kiss’ is universally recognised. Discussing that famous image, Hariman and Lucaites have argued that posters and visual material were an important part of how people saw themselves and their society: “people form, maintain, and continually revise their conception of themselves as a people by looking at images in the public media.” 1 Conscious of the nature of propaganda, there is often an element of subtle, if not outright manipulation of the intended audience. The purpose of these posters was to inspire a devotion to fight and inspire hatred of the enemy. My hypothesis is that posters in differing national contexts contain historic imagery because history was used to reinforce national identity, and could be easily integrated into wartime propaganda. In the posters of each country there are general themes that come through that reflect various national attitudes and approaches to propaganda. It is important to explore these national differences, as well as the distinct methodology and histories their propaganda drew upon. In understanding the phenomenon of historic posters, it is necessary to engage in why a given nation included specific historic or cultural motifs. Kathleen Ryan has shown that “understanding a culture (and its cultural products) is crucial to understanding how, or if, propaganda will work.”2 As the aim of states was to produce effective propaganda, they looked to national historic culture, as well as the values of the public, to manipulate opinion. The broad themes present in each corpus of national posters, as well as their approach to propaganda will be briefly outlined below. In the posters of the United Kingdom the general public were treated as errant children who had to be submitted to constant hectoring by the state. The majority of posters held in the National Archives and British Library are related to domestic life, condescending examples such as “Potato Pete says “I’m great in soup!””, ‘Take care coming out of brightly lit tube stations during the blackout’ and ‘address your letters plainly’ etcetera. As Finch has noted, propagandists’ insistence that all state produced messages conveying war information “had to be disguised as entertainment, contains an underlying philosophy that the people cannot be assumed to have even a basic level of cerebral capacity or, indeed, intellectual curiosity.”3 The Ministry of Information created and distributed huge amounts of posters during the war. Condescending they may have been, but they were of a decidedly less authoritarian tone than their counterparts in Germany and Russia. Jo Fox has shown that the British public considered perceived state infringement on the rights of the individual - freedom of opinion, speech and assembly - as tantamount to the behaviour of the Gestapo : the British public idealised freedom and liberty, as well as their vaunted parliamentary democracy. 4 In a Mass Observation report from September 1941, it was reported that “there was a strong correlation

1 Robert Hariman & John L. Lucaites, “The Times Square kiss: Iconic Photography and Civic Renewal in US Public Culture.” The Journal of American History ( 2007) 94 (1): p. 122 2Kathleen M. Ryan, ‘Don't Miss Your Great Opportunity’: Patriotism and Propaganda in Second World War Recruitment’, Visual Studies , 27:3, (Oct 2012), p. 249 3 Lynette Finch, “The Man in the Street and Second World War Propaganda ”, Journal of Australian Studies , 23:60 (1999) , p.100 4 Jo Fox, “Careless Talk: Tensions within British Domestic Propaganda during the Second World War”, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4 (October 2012), pp. 943-48

4 between ‘Britishness’ and “liberty, love of home, tolerance and justice,” which was so important to British ‘national ideology’ that Mass Observation surmised “freedom and tolerance are looked on by many people almost as a British monopoly.”5 Although the Ministry of Information produced thousands of posters set in modernity, the British created far less historical posters than Russia or Germany. This is likely because of the backlash against propaganda that resembled posters used in the last war, in which historic imagery of knights and saints was common. Vital to the British psyche in this period was the still present tragedy of the First World War, framed by the Church and State as a glorious ‘sacrifice,’ but largely remembered for the high casualties and horrendous conditions. The ‘Great War’ was still an open wound on the public consciousness, its trauma a crucial part of understanding the mind-set of the British public. As in the other nations, direct parallels both to recent history and the more distant past abound. For the United Kingdom, the major themes of their propaganda were based on the principles of ‘Britishness’- namely freedom, liberty, and popular ideals of fairness and democracy. The posters of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (hereafter the Soviet Union or USSR) draw extensively on traditional Russian folklore and history, combined with a dual patriotic impulse for the defence of the Motherland and the Revolution of 1917. Despite the seeming contradiction between Communism and figures from the Russian past, Stalin sought to evoke heroes and state victories, adding them to the pantheon of Soviet heroes to increase the legitimacy of the regime. 6 Robert Tucker has suggested that Stalin’s simultaneous position as a revolutionary figure and a Russian national statesman allowed him to adopt figures from Russian history without contradiction of Bolshevism, because he equated “the construction of socialism with state building in a historical Russian sense.” 7 The Soviet Union created far more posters than Britain or Nazi Germany, as the Bolsheviks had used posters as a tool to uplift the class consciousness of the entire population since the Revolution. The Central Committee had taken direct control of all political art in 1931 as they recognised it as a powerful political tool for influencing individuals and a means of “entering the consciousness and hearts of millions of people.”8 The total estimate for Soviet wartime posters is between 2500-3000 distinct designs, with copy runs ranging from a few hundred to half a million depending on the format. The state publishing house Iskusstvo (literally translated as ‘art’) produced 800 distinct designs from 1941-45, for a total of 34 million copies; while in Leningrad 700 designs were produced, 103 by the ‘Fighting Pencil’ ( Boevoi karandash) satirical group. More than 1000 TASS Windows were produced by the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) featuring quickly made hand stencilled designs made by local artists, who could produce art responding to events and news, production of which was largely decentralised. 9 The Soviets considered posters crucial to “efforts to influence people’s perceptions of the war, and what was at stake in it.”10 Iskusstvo was in charge of posters

5 Ibid, p. 948 & File Report FR 878, “What Does Britain Mean to You?” 23 September 1941, Mass Observation Archive (Sussex) 6 Kevin M. F. Platt, and David Brandenberger, Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature As Stalinist Propaganda (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 2006), p. 11 7 Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above 1928-1941 (London: W.W.Norton & Co, 1990), pp. 60 & 65 8 Brigada khudozhnikov , nos. 2-3 (1931): 1-3. 9 Mark Edele, “Paper Soldiers: The Wold of the Soldier Hero according to Soviet Wartime Posters.” Geschichte Osteuropas , (Jan 1, 1999), p. 94 10 John Barber & Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front , 1941-45 (London: Longman, 1991), p. 68

5 overall and oversaw the production and distribution of distinct designs across the entire Union in quick succession. Mark Edele has discussed the ‘Soldier Hero’ in Soviet posters and concluded that after disappointing early efforts using abstract themes early in the war, “artists soon learned to employ powerful and adaptable symbols.”11 These would include posters showing famous Russian victories against invaders from the West; from the thirteenth century all the way to 1917. The Soviets made extensive use of Russian folk heroes that appealed to peasants and workers and could be easily wedded to the anti-German war effort. The implied lionisation of the Russian soldier as the legendary bogatyrs , wandering Russian hero-knights, were accompanied by posters depicting Red Army troops fearlessly advancing watched over by famous Napoleonic-era generals. In addition, legendary heroes and battles were associated with the contemporary campaigns in Western and South Russia. Victoria Bonnell has shown that imagery from Russian culture, advertising, fine art, religious and folk art, mythology and revolutionary movements were fused with contemporary ideology to create a unique and persuasive visual language.”12 Some TASS Windows and posters even depict various Russian victories through history, with notable examples being the defeat of Napoleon in 1812 and comparing him to the similarly pompous figure of Hitler. The Soviets had made great use of compelling posters during the Russian Civil War, and during the ‘Great Patriotic War’ created many posters using striking visuals, based on the pre-existing visual language of Civil War ROSTA Windows and lubok broadsheets: simple illustrated posters that since the seventeenth century had been tailored to the peasantry and urban poor who would be able to infer the messages visually. 13 These lubki were often allegorical and included reference to Russian mythical figures like the bogatyr Ilya Muromets and witch-lady Baba Yaga. Ergo, Soviet posters were designed to be accessible, and therefore maximise their effectiveness. The propaganda of Nazi Germany has been heavily studied, and the vast majority was a sophisticated, multimedia barrage of anti-Semitic nationalism that boomed from loudspeakers, played in cinemas and blared from posters plastered on every available surface. Nazi propaganda presented an image of a national or people’s community, Volksgemeinschaft , that they had created by “by transcending social and class divisiveness through a new ethnic unity based on ‘true’ German values.”14 The Nazis were “scornful” of the western approach of ‘fearing the people’ and saw propaganda as a tool in the hands of the party: “the masses were raw material to be moulded to reflect the will of the leader.”15 Like the Allies, Adolf Hitler and the German High Command believed in the power of propaganda; in Mein Kampf the Führer explains how he believed the British secured military victory in 1918 because of their effective propaganda at home- winning the war in their heads long before the collapse of the final German Kaiserschlact offensive in April 1918. 16 Eugen Hadamovsky, one of Goebbels’s lieutenants in the Ministry of Information, shared this view of the effectiveness of Allied propaganda, citing the slogans of ‘Huns’, ‘Boches’,

11 Edele, “Paper Soldiers, ” p. 47 & p. 90 12 Victoria E. Bonnell, Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin. (Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1999), p. 7 13 Stephen White, The Bolshevik Poster (London: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 1-2 14 David Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft: Constructing a People’s Community,” Journal of Contemporary History , Vol. 39, No. 2, Understanding Nazi Germany (April 2004), p. 213 15 Finch, “The Man in the Street,” p. 100 16 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf , trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Hughton Mifflin Company, 1943), pp. 181-186

6 bloody handprints and tortured Belgian nuns that “screamed from a hundred thousand posters pasted on the walls of cities of the enemy” as a galvanising force that ensured “the feelings of the enemy masses were lashed into a frenzy of resistance and the will to win.” 17 David Welch has shown Nazi propaganda, was based on the 18 th century Romantic doctrine of völkisch , conservative nationalism based on traditional values. Welch explains that there are four major themes that re-occur in German propaganda, the first an “appeal to National unity based upon the principle ‘the community before the individual,” ( Volksgemeinschaft ) accompanied by emphasis on the need for racial purity, “A hatred of enemies which increasingly centred on Jews and Bolsheviks,” and finally “Charismatic leadership (Fuhrerprinzip ).”18 The key thrust of Nazi propaganda was that they were defending Europe and its cultural heritage against the tyrannical British, immoral Americans, ‘degenerate’ non- whites and the barbarian communists. The Nazis drew on historic imagery for their propaganda, recalling in particular the Teutonic Knights, High German Kultur and the ancient Nordic heritage of the German people. Hitler also ensured that the pageantry of the party and military resembled that of the Roman legions, an evocation the Nazis consciously sought, most clearly at the Nuremberg Rallies. Interestingly, it is in the posters distributed in Axis Occupied Territories that have the most explicit historic motifs. Fortunately for us all, the Nazis were better at propaganda and style than they were at winning wars. In the ‘Germanic’ Occupied Territories the Waffen-SS, the military branch of the SS which fielded troops and tanks in battle, made use of a set template for many recruitment posters. In the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, the Germans produced strikingly similar historic posters calling for recruits to fight in the Waffen-SS. Relying on historic figures from the respective nation’s history, they linked these figures to the Nazis current fight against Bolshevism. In France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway, posters were produced featuring French and Belgian Crusaders, the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter, Danish and Norse Viking warriors and Longships. In each case, the figures they depicted served some ideological link in a way that can be read in favour of Nazism. Normally the figures depicted are military heroes or ethno-nationalist identities, representations of a nations people, such as Vikings for the Norwegians and strapping blond farmers for the Germans. Since this propaganda is imposed upon the population by a foreign power, and perhaps due to the immoral nature of the Nazi regime, it is coercive and duplicitous in a way that other posters intended for a native audience are not. Quantifying the duplicitous element in these and other posters can be accomplished through application of Sheryl Tuttle Ross’ epistemic merit model, which will be discussed in chapter one along with other quantifying methods. In terms of historiography, this exact phenomena of historical posters in the Second World War has been overlooked by historians. Posters were not available till national museums collated them, and they were not meant to last ‘in the wild;’ most examples were pasted over or washed away by the weather. Early Bolshevik posters of 1918-21 were collected and discussed by Stephen White in The Bolshevik Poster (1988). Within, he first posits that Soviet Propaganda drew on folklore and allegorical figures to appeal to the politically fractious Russian population. Joseph Darracott and Belinda Loftus, at the behest of Noble Frankland, the director of the Imperial War Museum in London, catalogued some of the most

17 Eugen Hadamovsky: Propaganda and National Power , trans. Randall Bytwerk (Calvin College German Propaganda Archive, 2007), p. 13 18 David Welch, “Nazi Propaganda and the Volksgemeinschaft,” p. 217

7 interesting and representative samples of mostly British war posters in the aptly named Second World War Posters (1972). This marked the start of museums beginning to catalogue their posters and organise them for access by researchers. As these posters were never designed to last a long time in the field, the only examples that existed where those acquired by museums or private collections. Serious study of posters thus did not begin till the late 1970s, when it was feasible to study national collections for the first time. Richard Chambers discussed the role of posters specifically in “Art and Propaganda in an Age of War: The Role of Posters” (1983), in which he delineated three main themes of war posters. Namely: appeals to patriotism and valour to encourage recruitment; appeals to civilian oriented activities, that emphasize the importance of civilian production to military victory, and; appeals to fear, often using ‘horror and atrocity’ images designed to foster hatred and fear of the enemy in the viewer. 19 The historical posters in this corpus display all three of these themes. Historian of Stalinism Sheila Fitzpatrick in “War and Society in Soviet Context: Soviet Labour before, during, and after World War II”, (1989) wrote that the German invasion forced the Soviets to abandon their class-based discourse and instead utilised broad polyvalent icons to appeal to their population. Mark Edele wrote on Soviet Propaganda in “Paper Soldiers”, (1999) discussing the creation of soldier heroes and the utilisation of historical figures, explaining how these posters attempted to influence Russian views. Victoria Bonnell wrote on Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (1999), discussing the adoption of polyvalent symbols, as well as classifying posters as documents of government intent, a useful conceptualisation for the analysis of historical posters. Sheryl Tuttle Ross provided a model for analysing the manipulative element of propaganda posters in “Understanding Propaganda: The Epistemic Merit Model and Its Application to Art.” (2002) Grace-Ellen McCrann wrote “Government Wartime Propaganda Posters: Communicators of Public Policy” (2009), that traced the development of posters from the pointillism of Georges Seurat, to the simplified art of Toulouse-Lautrec, to nationalist Czech artist Alphonse Mucha, through to the visually dynamic posters of the wars. Jo Fox wrote on the propaganda war in the Cambridge History of The Second World War (2015) compared the different propaganda agencies and specific features of public attitudes to it, providing insight into similarities and differences between the combatant powers. She noted key developments before the war, such as Britain and the United States’ aversion to propaganda after the lies of the Great War, while Germany took the opposite lesson, and the Soviets sought to use propaganda to bridge the gap between their diverse ranks of citizens. These works represent a general overview of propaganda posters during the war. In these historical posters, there are four main categories by which they can be organised. Half the posters reference past battles and wars, while the other half reference specific individuals or invoke ethno-nationalist identities. Past conflicts can be split into two chronological periods; posters depicting Ancient and Medieval wars, such as the Crusades, or invoking Roman military might; and those referencing early modern and modern conflicts such as the Seven Years War, Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, fresh in the memory of the populations of the 1940s. Posters referencing individuals either reference historical figures like Alexander Nevsky, Lord Nelson, or Michiel De Ruyter, while posters using ethno-nationalist identities call on mythology as diverse as the Old Norse and the

19 Lieutenant Richard Chambers, “Art and Propaganda in an Age of War: The Role of Posters.” Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, 13 (4): (1983), p. 54

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Ancient Greeks, and utilise figures such as Vikings, Medieval Knights, Teutonic Crusaders or Bogatyrs . These themes; ancient and medieval conflicts, early-modern and modern conflicts, historical individuals and ethno-nationalist depictions are how this thesis will be structured to ensure comparison between countries. I have sourced images of posters from verified repositories on the internet, mainly national museum collections or scattered across the web then checked against official repositories, as well as several published collections. I collated posters that contain clear historical imagery, and organised them into common themes within the chapters to analyse and compare the use of history by these nations. To ensure accuracy, I have only included posters for analysis that I have confirmed the provenance of beyond reasonable doubt; through the production date, artist and museum reference. British war historian and head of the Imperial War Museum in the 1970s, Noble Frankland was aware of the trend of historic posters in the collections of the Imperial War Museum but noted the methodological difficulties of studying large quantities of posters that are not organised or collected together in one database. 20 The internet now allows this kind of comparative research of sources located in different countries, which would have been extremely arduous to achieve in the past. As such, this is the first comprehensive, comparative study of historical posters in the Second World War. In gathering posters for this study I have pored over thousands of examples from various countries, only selecting posters with historical imagery. This thesis is not an exhaustive catalogue, instead I have selected examples of historical posters that are representative of the genre. Of my sample of approximately 150 posters, I have selected 56 examples that best illustrate the key features, themes and motifs of this genre of posters, as well as represent the chronological spread of the events referenced. The first chapter shall discuss propaganda theory, its development in the interwar period and propose a model for analysing historical posters. The following chapters are organised thematically so as to facilitate comparison. Chapter Two focuses on posters calling on past conflicts and military motifs from ancient mythology to the early medieval period. Chapter Three discusses posters using early modern and modern wars, including the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. Chapter Four will examine posters that include historical figures and ethno-nationalist identities. This thesis demonstrates how the British, Germans and Russians all used very similar forms of historical poster, that they each populated them with images from their national past, and attempted to influence their populations with comparable themes and techniques.

20 Darracott & Loftus, Second World War Posters , p. 5, 37.

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Chapter 1- Propaganda Theory and Methodology of Poster Analysis This chapter outlines propaganda theory regarding political posters and how they work. It will discuss the common features employed in historical posters, and why nations chose to use them. I will then explain the mechanics of persuasion, the theory of how propaganda manipulated its audiences, as well as how propaganda theory in the inter-war period developed and influenced the major powers. I will then discuss definitions of propaganda determining the key features. Finally, I explain an analytical model for analysing historical posters, that focuses on the intended goals of their producers and how these posters tried to manipulate their viewers. Posters were a potent tool in the arsenal of state propaganda ministries. Propaganda historian James Aulich described the political poster as the “exemplary modern medium [that] appeals to the most modern of phenomena, the masses.”21 They could be distributed widely across territories and provided an easily accessible message to audiences regardless of literacy. Victoria Bonnell, distinguished historian of Soviet political posters, has noted that in times of war and limited supplies of ink and paper, publicly displayed political posters offered a more effective medium of reaching a large audience than newspapers. 22 The visual dynamism that artists could create in these posters served to catch attention and reinforce their message. Kathleen Ryan has argued that two dimensional worlds of the poster “offered the simplest and most elegant manifestation of the notion that it was a patriotic duty to serve,” which can be clearly seen in historical posters. 23 Wartime propaganda was utilised primarily to convince people to either enlist and fight, or to support the war effort by other means. Thus, we can assume every historic detail included in a poster is there to serve the purpose of building citizen support for the war effort. As Lynette Finch shows, “the main task of the propagandists was to convince civilians that the war was their war and that survival depended upon victory.” 24 This may seem obvious, but it is important for understanding why artists might have used certain historic themes or imagery, as their goal was always to influence the viewer of the validity of the war effort. The First World War had seen the end of small professionalised armies and the advent of total war, with civilians in the firing line as nations committed their entire economy and society against one another. 25 As Finch summarised, during the twentieth century “wars have been between nations and not between armies.”26 The Second World War saw even more civilians directly affected by the war: by invasion and occupation, strategic bombing, rationing and enlistment into the armed forces or war production industries. The increase of civilian involvement in the war effort ensured that governments strived to influence them. Accordingly, as Terence Qualter explains, this increased involvement sparked a need to create a personal interest in the outcome of the war for civilians, in the form of national identity; “with the nation at war, appeals to national pride

21 James Aulich, War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication (London, New York: Thames and Hudson, 2011), p. 11 22 Bonnell, Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters Under Lenin and Stalin, p. 5 23 Ryan, “Patriotism and Propaganda in Second World War Recruitment,’ p. 259 24 Finch, “The Man in the Street and Second World War Propaganda ”, Journal of Australian Studies , 23:60, 1999. p. 96 25 Michael Howard, “Total War in the Twentieth Century: Participation and Consensus in the Second World War,” War and Society. A Yearbook of Military History I (1975), pp. 216-226 26 Lynette Finch, “Psychological Propaganda: The War of Ideas During the First Half of the Twentieth Century”, Armed Forces and Society , Vol. 26, No. 3, (Spring 2000), p.372

10 and loyalty took on a new and deeper meaning.”27 Clearly the propagandist’s role was one of a manipulator of opinion, with national history a widely applicable tool for influencing populations. Historical Posters The state, British, Nazi or Soviet, demanded loyalty from their citizens and a willingness to risk one’s life or work as hard as possible for the war effort. People are much more likely to cooperate in this manner if they truly believe in the cause, and that the war is worth fighting for. To do this, propagandists filled their work with symbols and imagery from popular history that their citizens would recognise and identify with. Victoria Bonnell has argued that to be effective, political art required the artists to “speak the language” of the intended audience, using symbols, imagery and styles of representation they would understand. 28 Posters aimed to “inform, instruct, or suggest new ways of looking at the war” by presenting an easy to comprehend message or idea with an appeal that was emotional rather than rational. 29 Using familiar imagery and cultural symbols, posters were designed to draw in and engage with their audiences. History was a natural choice for this format. Available to be called on by the state, as successors to the past, and shared with the general population; history functioned as a mutual framework in which to articulate the importance of the war effort. Grace-Ellen McCrann has explained that for persuasion by propaganda to succeed there must be a level of “social interactivity” between the producer and audience. This is because “persuasion, by its very definition, needs two parties to succeed and a socio-cultural context within which the message or symbol will be understood.”30 Non-historical posters call on a wide range of features, such as British red London buses, that would connect the viewers experience to the scene depicted in the poster, thus increasing the chance that the viewer would accept and act on the posters message. Political Theorist Murray Edelman has asserted that during time of crisis countries are likely to turn to nostalgic depictions of better times gone by. 31 In historical posters, images of historic soldiers, heroes, swords and shields, galleons, mounted knights as well as Crusaders, Romans, Bogatyrs and Vikings crop up. They portrayed important, canonised historic events in visually dynamic ways and showed people from the past fighting for or acting in the interests of their nations. The implication for a viewer was clear: your ancestors did their bit, what are you going to do? Images of national history could directly engage with a viewer’s personal life, as the history depicted would belong to them and be part of their national identity. This was obviously not the case for every viewer of every poster, and the ‘history’ depicted may have veered far from the truth of events. Max Weber’s term “imagined uniformity,” describes political artworks that used folk motifs, history or myths were not necessarily reflections of historical fact, but a symbolic construction of a new shared culture to unify behind.32 However, the widespread use of historical imagery in posters is a testament to how effective such motifs were at engaging

27 Terance H. Qualter, Propaganda and Psychological Warfare (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 54 28 Bonnell, Iconography of Power , p. 7 29 Lt. Chambers, “Art and Propaganda in an Age of War: The Role of Posters,” p. 54 30 Grace-Ellen McCrann, “Government Wartime Propaganda Posters: Communicators of Public Policy,” Behavioural & Social Sciences Librarian , 28:53-73, (2009), p. 55 31 Murray Edelman, From Art to Politics: How Artistic Creations Shape Political Conceptions (University of Chicago Press, 1996), p. 31 32 The original German Term is Geglaubte gemeinsamkeit

11 audiences. Thus we see posters call on three groups of historic motifs; Semi-mythical events from the ancient past or early medieval period; conflicts from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, in relatively recent history, which people had a closer connection to,; and historical individuals, mythical heroes and ethno-nationalist identities who embodied a nations spirit and people. Around two thirds of the posters in this sample utilise imagery from past conflicts, ranging from myths, to medieval conflicts, early modern all the way to the Russian Civil War. Historical battles and wars were used in posters to frame the Second World War as a worthy cause. States could claim legitimacy from the past by referencing history that their citizens would know and identify with. State authority and the weight of the past were twined together to encourage support for the war effort. Rather than an international conflict over the fate of Europe, the war became an extension of national history. Presenting the War in the same image as historical conflicts, mythical heroes or individuals, these posters implied that the contemporary war effort was a direct continuation of a nation’s past conflicts. These past conflicts were obviously seen as necessary or vitally important battles and victories, since they were part of national stories and heritage. The placing of the Second World War within this framework of national histories was intended to legitimise the modern conflict as a continuation of the worthy causes of the past. This invoked a given citizen reader’s national identity and their duty to fight and/or support the war effort. In essence, historical posters were used by Britain, Germany and Russia to convince their peoples that the modern war was a legitimate continuation of the past, and thus required their patriotic support. Mechanics of Persuasion The mechanics of persuasion are the processes by which propaganda attempts to influence audiences. After the end of the First World War, intellectuals suggested that propaganda functioned by subtly altering audience’s perception of reality. Writing in 1922, American political journalist Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion posited the existence of ‘pseudo- environments’, a psychological term to explain the capability of the media and states during the First World War at influencing the public. Lippmann argued that our world was too large, complex and varied for humans to fully understand, as “we are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety.” 33 Instead, humans carry pictures in our heads, or ‘stereotypes’- a term Lippmann coined - based on a mix between one’s genetic psychology and material conditions. These form a model based on our own experiences, prejudices and attitudes, as well as the impositions of the environment we live in. Australian historian Lynette Finch, writing on psychological propaganda, showed that these pictures determined how individuals perceived their world and is what they referred to when forming an opinion on information they encountered.34 These stereotypes form a pseudo-environment that becomes a lens through which humans perceive and rationalise the world, informing their decisions and attitudes. Lippmann determined that the condition of modernity, with the power of mass media and the vast scale of human society created a layer of interpretation and values between the individual and their environment: “to that pseudo-environment his behaviour is a response.” 35 The aim of propaganda is to manipulate opinions and thus behaviour. Since behaviour is based on these pseudo-environments, propaganda seeks to influence individuals

33 Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998 [1922]), p. 16 34 Finch, “Psychological Propaganda,” p. 370 35 Lippmann, Public Opinion , p. 15

12 by changing their pseudo-environment itself. In light of Lippmann’s influence, Finch maintains that propaganda aims to supplant individuals own pre-existing opinions and beliefs, as it needs to create a new pseudo-environment through which people will form their responses to warfare. 36 These environments can be persuasive but only as long as they are not undermined. In post-war America, Lippmann was writing in an environment of widespread anger and distrust of state messages, after wartime propaganda proclaiming German atrocities in Belgium were proven to be false. The effect of First World War propaganda on the Second was varied by nation. In Germany, the assumption was that effective propaganda was needed to whip civilians up into a frenzy against the British and Russians, as the British had done against the Germans in the first War. The 1915 Bryce Report, a particularly vitriolic document detailing alleged atrocities by the German Army, was accepted in the US as authoritative owing to the high standing of its author Lord Bryce. The report was a major factor in persuading US public opinion in favour of intervention in France. To the vexation of many, it was proven to be falsified after the war, a fabrication designed to convince the public of the necessity of the war. The shock that many Americans had lost loved ones and sacrificed their time and health, all on the merit of lies caused a backlash of cynicism against propaganda so severe that many Nazi propagandists had a higher opinion of Western posters than their Allied counterparts did. 37 This constituted a ‘break in the fictitious world’ established by US propaganda during the war, that presented the Germans as barbarians hell- bent on conquest. This break, seen in Britain as well as the United States, manifested in a cynical attitude towards modern warfare and near hostility towards propaganda images that seemed duplicitous. In the inter-war period, the British considered the widespread cynical attitude to propaganda so severe that the effectiveness of posters may have been permanently crippled. In all cases of posters, but particularly this group that utilised historical imagery and linked it to the War, propagandists aimed to influence their citizens by introducing these rehabilitating images into the public environment. Audiences viewing these images that serve to legitimise and historicize the present through the past will, in theory, perceive the world through an altered pseudo-environment more favourable to the war. The mechanics of persuasion are worth exploring, as they reveal why images of battles were thought to be effective propaganda. The state produced images that situated the Second World War as a continuation of national struggles in the past, depicting it as a continuation of the country’s struggle to survive against its ancient enemies. Historical posters achieved this through thematically similar images of victories, great military leaders and heroes. Frank Kampfer has noted that different nations also used similar visual techniques, such as treating the left and right sides of the poster frame as east and west, allowing the placement and direction of images to reflect European geography. 38 For example, in Nazi anti-Soviet posters the heroes face the right, the east, to oppose Russia. In Soviet posters the heroes charge towards the left, the west, to face their ancestral opponents. The propagandist’s aim was to turn a citizen’s natural affinity for his or her country into support of the war effort. The proliferation of posters in public spaces created a new pseudo-environment in which the war

36 Finch, “Psychological Propaganda,” p. 370 37 Ibid , p. 380 38 Frank Kampfer, "De Rote Keil," das politische Plakat: Theorie und Geschicte (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1985), p. 86

13 was construed as a worthy battle for national freedom and defence of traditional values and the homeland. This framework compelled the audience to action by making the war the cause of the nation, for which every citizen was a part of. Appealing to historic nationalism was a necessary step, as Finch points out, as international wars that involve fighting in defence or support of another country “require a more abstract theme than self-preservation or protection of one’s own private property” to motivate troops. 39 Past victories inspired thoughts of national glory and heroism. Propaganda positioned the Second World War as a conflict of significance on par with semi-mythologised conflicts and battles from the past. This lent the modern conflict the legitimacy of history, as well as encouraging patriotic individuals to assist the state in ensuring victory in the present. In addition, the association of distinctly national historic events with the present could serve as a unifying force. McCrann, explaining how posters communicate public policy, said that propaganda posters used shared symbolism to frame goals and delineate groups between us and them .40 This is evident in the posters analysed in this chapter. In comparing the present conflict to past battles from the national canon, propagandists present themes of continuity and a universal heritage that can be claimed by ‘us’, instilling national unity and cohesion, as well as simultaneously excluding ‘them.’ Invoking past battles to position the War as a continuation of national history could inspire soldiers to fight harder, civilians to unite behind the war effort and give greater meaning to the conflict. Propaganda was perceived to be a form of dishonest manipulation. Harold Lasswell, an American communications theorist and scientist, published in 1927 Propaganda Technique in World War I , capturing the key features of the recent wartime propaganda campaigns. His text was eagerly received and considered an authoritative insight on propaganda that informed the techniques applied by the Germans in the 1930s. Lasswell defined propaganda as “the management of opinions and attitudes by the direct manipulation of social suggestion rather than by altering other conditions in the environment or in the organism. 41 ” As Finch elegantly summarises, this amounts to “changing the popular perception of the situation without altering its material conditions.”42 Altering perceptions could stem from convincing people that their opponents were truly evil, or that the future of their country was at stake and needed defending, usually through encouraging national pride. By 1939, propaganda had become a crucial component of modern warfare and was vital to the pursuit of victory. Bertrand Russell, a committed pacifist, elucidated the civilian disposition needed for modern conflict, noting that “a nation cannot succeed in a modern war unless most people are willing to suffer hardship and many people willing to die,” and that this willingness can only be produced by convincing their subjects “that the war is about something…so important…as to be worthy of martyrdom.” 43 Clearly, propaganda was considered a very important aspect of a state’s relationship or control over its citizens.

39 Finch, “Psychological Propaganda.” p. 377 40 McCrann, “Government Wartime Propaganda Posters,” p. 61 41 Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in World War I (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1971 [1927]) p. 34 42 Finch, “Psychological Propaganda,” p. 368 43 Bertrand Russell, Power: A New Social Analysis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1938), p.135

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Definitions and Methodology Kenneth A. Bird, the British wartime propaganda artist known as Fougasse, wrote that he considered “everything stuck up with the object of persuading the passer-by for the common good’ ’ a propaganda poster .44 Richard Chambers has described posters as “a means of maintaining political and social cohesion, and maintaining morale and enthusiasm for the war,” but this definition leaves propaganda somewhat de-fanged. 45 Clearly, there is an element of manipulation or even an implicit threat to the message of these posters. In historical posters, the viewer is told by inference to take part in the war effort like their ancestors or be outside the national community. Michael Balfour, who served in the British High Command during the war, points out that authority of the state and ubiquity of posters meant that propaganda could create a highly emotive atmosphere and “invest its favoured interpretations with such prestige” that barely anyone will consider an alternative. 46 In such an environment, invalid claims from a position of authority are even less likely to be challenged. Scholars generally agree that persuasion is the key feature of propaganda. Examining Nazi propaganda, the historian David Welch has argued that the state sought to instruct its people through relentless indoctrination as to why they must offer their loyalty and support.47 To understand the reasoning behind historical posters, we must understand the aims of propaganda and how nations looked to achieve this. Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell held that propaganda is “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.’’ 48 McCrann suggested that it is the use of persuasive techniques using imagery, messages and wording to convince audiences that the view articulated by the poster is the correct view, and “should be adopted, believed or acted upon by the target audience.’’ 49 So far, something could be described as propaganda if it is a determined effort to persuade a group by a socio-political organisation or cause. While this is not incorrect, it is vague, and could describe a number of documents or even advertising. Sheryl Tuttle Ross’s Epistemic Merit Model provides a definition that clearly delineates the key features of propaganda. Ross states that a message must meet four conditions to be propaganda: 1) the intention to persuade; 2) it was sent on behalf of a socio-political organisation or cause with committed ideological positions; 3) directed towards a socially significant group of people; and 4) it is epistemically defective. A message is epistemically defective if its content, as well as conceptual schema and morality “is false, inappropriate or connected to other beliefs in ways that are inapt, misleading, or unwarranted: false statements, bad arguments, immoral commands etc.’’ 50 The epistemic merit model qualifies that the manipulative element of propaganda that are not lies per se, but are connecting beliefs together in unwarranted ways. Furthermore, many of these poster captions do not contain truth values, and epistemic defectiveness is able to quantify these as well as

44 Kenneth A. Bird, “Propaganda Posters” in A.P. Harper, A School of Purposes: A Collection of Fougasse Posters, 1939-45 (London: Meuthen, 1946), p. 9 45 Lt. Chambers, “The Role of Posters,” p. 54 46 Michael Balfour, Propaganda in War, 1939-1945: Organisation, Policies and Publics in Britain and Germany (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979), p. 422 47 Welch, “ Volksgemeinschaft, ” p. 218 48 Garth S. Jowett & Victoria O’Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999), p. 6 49 McCrann, “Government Wartime Propaganda Posters,” p. 53 50 Sheryl Tuttle Ross, ‘Understanding Propaganda: The Epistemic Merit Model and Its Application to Art.’ The Journal of Aesthetic Education , Vol. 36, No. 1 (Spring, 2002), p. 23

15 commands and conceptual frameworks, which are outside ‘true or false.’ Tuttle Ross points out that a propagandist is unlikely to lie outright, as they themselves believe the story they are selling, but instead they twist reality to convince the audience of their intent. Epistemic deficiency is when beliefs are connected to one another erroneously in an attempt to mislead the audience into believing or accepting the propagandist’s assertions. The two posters below both conflate historical figures with the modern war effort, and Tuttle Ross’s model allows us to determine how these posters were designed to manipulate viewers. The utility of the epistemic merit model can be seen through comparison of a historic Waffen-SS poster to a structurally similar Russian one, both produced in 1943. Figure 1.1 ‘Show you are a true Dutchman ’ is a recruitment poster for the Waffen-SS in the Occupied Netherlands, approved and distributed by the Nazi regime. Fig. 1.2 ‘For the Sake of the Motherland, Forward Bogatyrs!’ is a Soviet poster encouraging heroism in Red Army soldiers. Both feature historical figures from the respective national pasts of the Netherlands and Russia; famed Admiral Michiel de Ruyter and a semi-mythical bogatyr (knight-errant), likely Ilya Muromets. Both these figures are often invoked in the spirit of patriotism, although in this case it is a foreign invader-the Nazis- and the nominally internationalist Communist Party who are invoking these images. The association of de Ruyter, a Dutch national hero, with fighting Bolshevism is clearly ahistorical and what Tuttle Ross would describe as ‘epistemically defective.’ There are no truth-value statements in ‘Show you are a true Dutchman, Up-against Bolshevism! Join the Waffen-SS;’ ergo there are no lies per se. Ross’s model allows us to determine that the Nazis conflated historical figures with their war effort to recruit new European troops. In this case, the poster associates de Ruyter, an Admiral from the seventeenth century, with the Nazi fight against ‘Bolshevism’, between which there is little historical connection beyond military conflict in a general sense. It is therefore epistemically defective because it aims to conflate Dutch history with anti- Communism, which incorrectly leads the audience to believe that true Dutch patriotism is joining the Waffen-SS to fight the Soviets. Therefore, as de Ruyter did not fight communism, and we judge the Nazi world view to be false or immoral, this poster is epistemically defective propaganda despite the lack of verifiable ‘lies’ or untruths. In contrast, the Bogatyrs of Russian legend were often engaged in the defence of their homeland, so their enlistment in propaganda is hardly as bemusing as De Ruyter’s. The Russian example is still defective to a smaller degree, as the inclusion of a mythical hero, as well as SVT-40 Rifles and a PPSHE-41 Submachinegun imply that Red Army soldiers would be treated with honour, respect and would be well equipped. Famously lacking so many rifles they had to share between two, before mid-1943, Red troops would likely have laughed at the idea that they were portrayed as knights in shining armour with shiny new weapons. Any recruit to the Red Army convinced by the posters showing fearless Communists armed to the teeth obliterating terrified Germans would soon find that in fact, the posters implied a far easier time than was to be had than reality. In many of these cases, there is a simple conflation of the imagined community of the historical nation with the State’s modern imperative to fight the World War. This manifests as depictions of historical battles, individuals or ethno-nationalist depictions that represent a historic ‘people’, which show them supporting or fighting in past wars. These posters thus present an imperative that the viewer’s nation has historically fulfilled its patriotic duty to fight for or assist the state, and that he or she must do the same in the present.

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Figure 1.1: ‘Show you are a true Dutchman, Up-Against Bolshevism! Join the Figure 1.2: ‘For the sake of the Motherland, Forward Bogatyrs!’, Irakly Waffen SS. ’S,1943, GVN AG-00348A 17 Toidze, 1943. IPG

To analyse historical posters, I have utilised a methodology that combines the epistemic merit model with Victoria Bonnell’s treatment of propaganda posters as historical documents that reveal state tactics of persuasion and use of cultural references. Bonnell regards posters as sources for official discourse akin to speeches, that are used to “to map out the repertoire of references available in contemporary culture and suggest some possible interpretations,” and attempts to infer the aims of the officials and artists who designed it. 51 Ross’ Epistemic Merit model is extremely useful for analysing visual propaganda. By determining which components are epistemically defective, we can ascertain which part of a historical poster is designed to manipulate its viewers. Although the passage of time has ensured civilian reactions to these artworks has been lost to history, Bonnell’s method allows meaningful discussion of the significance of the symbols and imagery used. By using Ross’ epistemic merit model to determine how historical motifs were intended to manipulate the audience, Bonnell’s method can then be employed to determine why . The following three chapters are organised thematically and discuss the common artistic features and historic tropes that appeared in British, Soviet and Nazi posters.

51 Bonnell, Iconography of Power , p. 11

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Chapter Two: “May the Courageous Example of our Great Predecessors Inspire You in this War!” Ancient and Medieval Conflicts Posters referencing historic battles or wars are perhaps the most direct use of the past in service of propaganda. Across Europe, posters proclaimed parallels between the Second World War and much older European conflicts from across the previous millennium. this chapter is focused on the chronologically earliest wars and battles utilised in posters, imagery of Imperial Rome and Early-Medieval conflict from before 1500. The Nazis consciously adopted symbols used by the Roman Army, and they and Britain aimed to present their respective war efforts as crusades to defend or liberate Europe. All three referenced Hellenistic mythology, depicting either Greek goddesses or mythical heroes and beasts. The Nazi and Soviet authorities both called on the Northern Crusades on the 13 th century as examples of their respective national victories. The three powers used these conflicts and symbols from the distant past to assert that the modern war was as important in the present as many of these foundational conflicts were in the past. In the case of Rome and the Crusades, historical posters presented the war as a continuation of these noble military traditions; either in the defence of ‘European’ or Christian values or a campaign to best evil. This chapter shall discuss posters that reference Roman and Hellenic imagery, the Crusades, and other Early Medieval conflicts. The Nazis evoked Roman martial culture, adopting symbolism from the Roman Army and borrowing potent imagery such as the swastika from history. This was a conscious attempt by the Nazis to associate themselves with a ‘European’ tradition, as well as the perceived military invincibility of Rome. Three posters demonstrate the Roman Army origins of the Party eagle and Swastika banners, while this example from O Ang shows how the Germans framed the war as a defence of European civilisation and virtues. The Ministry of Propaganda played fast and loose with historical detail, co-opting the imagery of Roman Imperial power that had traditionally been opposed to Germanic peoples. It is a strange twist that the banners of the legions that faced eastwards across the Rhine in the ancient past were turned into the most recognisable symbol of the Nazi regime. As can be seen in Richter’s 1938 poster advertising an NSDAP Rally in Pomerania, the Nazis used pictorial representations of their banners to ensure that the emotive power of their rallies were echoed in public spaces. This is classic totalitarianism: the ubiquitous swastika, eagles and banners serve to convince the onlooker that Germany is under total domination of the Nazis by placing their visual insignia in public places, and thus the mind of the audience. The eagle introduced by Hitler to Nazi imagery was a deliberate exhortation of the Roman Army’s signa militaria : the silver or gold eagle – aquila- that “embodied the spirit of the legion and was the object of religious veneration.” 52 The aquila was normally atop the signa militaria . Great shame would fall on a legion that lost its standard. These signa militaria would be carried in the front ranks and were treated with the kind of veneration national flags in medieval and early modern armies were, with Roman legionaries taking great risk to retrieve them if they fell into enemy hands. The connection between the Roman Empire and fascism was historically tenuous: Caesar may have been a tyrant, but he was no fascist. The Roman Empire had a huge cultural legacy and left ruins scattered across Europe, so naturally propaganda aimed to tie Nazism to the

52 Signa Militaria, in Simon Hornblower, Anthony Spanworth and Esther Eidinow (eds.) The Oxford Classical Dictionary (4. Ed) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)

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Figure 2.1: Pomeranian District Rally of the NSDAP. Max E Richter, . Figure 2.2: Europe defends its 3000-year-old culture against Bolshevism . Stettin: NSDAP 1938. IWM PST 3171 [Nazi Germany (NG)] 20 O. Ang. 1942/44. BND Plak 003-028-106 [NG] legacy of Rome. The Nazis chose to adopt Roman imagery in a way that embodied vague, nationalist ideals of military prowess and European cultural heritage. Seeking to rekindle Germany’s Imperial Glory, Hitler gifted the Wehrmacht four standards bearing golden eagles, consciously modelled on Roman aquila, that he had designed himself to symbolise victory, after having read in an Anti-Semitic dictionary that Eagles were the ‘Aryans’ of the animal world. 53 Darracott and Loftus discuss the origins of the Party Eagle seen in Richter’s poster, stating that it was distinct from the Imperial Eagle, that had become purely a nationalist symbol under Weimar. For the Roman Army, their aquila represented both their esprit de corps - the connection and close relationship between legionnaires, as well as symbolising the genii , the many intangible semi-divine spirits and forces that account for everyone and everything. 54 This made the standards more than just battle flags, but sacralised ritual objects, which Roman camps were built around, the genii functioning as semi-divine intermediaries. Hitler’s erroneous use of them was to encourage loyalty and self-confidence in Germany’s ranks, a conscious effort to channel a sense of Imperial grandeur that many Germans had felt was lost in 1918. In his 2015 PhD thesis Benjamin Greet has noted the ‘larger symbolic language’ around Eagles in the Mediterranean. Ancient Rome’s adoption of the aquila standards and eagle coinage served to express itself as a ‘strong state, which entailed “attacking its enemies like an eagle hunting its prey” while also associating with the ancient Hellenistic Kingdoms. 55 This association served to heighten perceptions of Roman power, and the aquila ’s subsequent adoption centuries later by the Nazis was a similar attempt to associate the awe and respect of ancient military prowess with their regime. Mythology was used in German Occupied territories, as it presented a visual language that could be understood across Europe. The Nazi message was that they were the defenders of European civilisation and its culture from the Communist barbarians, the imperialist British, and the despised Americans. As spurious as those claims may be in reality, it is exactly the message being articulated in O Ang’s poster “ Europe defends its 3000-year-old culture against Bolshevism .” Here we can see the impression Nazi propagandists aimed to convey of Germany as the defender of Europe and European values. Europa is depicted in Hellenistic dress, wielding a spear and shield, stylistically evoking the Greek/Roman Goddess of Wisdom, Athena or Minerva. This aesthetic reference to Ancient Greece and Rome implies that the clearly Bolshevik Red hordes at her feet are barbarians come to attack Europe. The Reds march towards Europa from the right side of the poster, representing the inexorable Soviet advance westwards. This could also be a tentative allusion to the Greek City-States victory over the Persian King Xerxes in the 5 th Century BC, involving the famous stand at Thermopylae of 300 Spartans and decisive Greek naval victory at Salamis. The poster thus presents German/Europa’s victory over the Bolsheviks as historically inevitable. These posters which present Nazi Germany as defenders of Europe are clearly epistemically defective, as they falsely equate German military goals with the interests of the European culture and nations that were conquered by force. Tuttle Ross’ model clarifies that the Nazi regime had to rely on this semi-mythologised version of Europe needing defence, as it was

53 Joseph Darracott & Belinda Loftus, Second World War Posters (London: Imperial War Museum, 1972), p. 51 54 Rose, H. Ancient Roman Religion (London: Hutchinson University Library) & Speidel, M. P. 1978a. “The Cult of the Genii in the Roman Army and a New Military Deity.” ANRW II.16.2, pp. 1542-1555 55 Benjamin James Robert Greet, The Roman Eagle: A Symbol and its Evolution (University of Leeds: PHD Thesis, September 2015), p. 72

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Figure 2.3: Let’s Kill the Hydra! Sarkisyan, P, TASS 22 Window 1211, 5 May 1945. IWM PST 5295 [USSR] Figure 2.4: England Expects National Service . Bacon, Cyril W. 1939, IWM PST 13959 [UK] the only appeal to non- German nationalism that assisted the German war effort rather than being implicitly opposed to it. The Soviets also referred to classical Greek myths. Sarkisyan and Lebedev’s “ Let’s Kill the Hydra” shows a German many headed hydra being decapitated by an Allied sword, wielded by a Herculean hand marked with the flags of the United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union. The many heads of the snake represent the millions of men mobilized by the Nazis, and the pile of skulls their many victims. This TASS window was created on the 5 th May 1945, only two days before Nazi Germany’s surrender: Hitler was dead, the Red Army was in Berlin and the aim was to mop up any resistance from the remnants of the German force. The top caption is a quote from the Crimean Conference of February 1945, referring to the need to destroy the German High Command, while the writer Lebedev below provided a “jaunty verse” that emphasised for normal citizens the snake-like villainy of the fascists, and why they must be destroyed. The design of this poster emphasised the gargantuan effort that had gone into defeating the Nazi monster. Hercules’ strength came from Allied unity, represented by the flags on the mighty arms sleeve. Mythology was used when it was applicable to the situation the artist wished to convey and would be easily understood by audiences. The British produced few historical posters that reference ethno-nationalist identities or mythical figures, and those they did espoused ‘British values.’ Cyril W. Bacon’s 1939 poster, “ England Expects National Service” shows Britannia, a representation of Britain, wearing Hellenistic robes, wielding a spear and shield, with an Ancient Greek helmet resting on her head. In the foreground, the various roles of National Service; soldiers, firefighters, policemen and nurses etc. The Hellenistic figure with a Union Flag on her shield is a use of mythology imagery similar to that used by the Nazis and Soviets. Greek myth was all-encompassing, and as the embodiment of democracy and European classical history, was a natural choice for use in propaganda. ‘Crusading’ as a theme was far more prominent in speeches than Allied posters. Mike Horswell has shown that while crusading language permeated the upper echelons of Allied command and politics, there is little to suggest more than a ‘surface level’ of understanding and engagement with crusading or the crusades. General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe even titled his memoir of events Crusade in Europe . As Horswell shows, this constituted use of the ‘Crusades’ in a ‘diffuse and metaphorical manner’ that reflected contemporary elite attitudes to the war rather than historical literacy. 56 It is odd then, that the British poster design Join the Crusade , utilised powerful imagery in the form of a British Union Flag topped by a burning cross. Visually the image is striking; it invokes both national feeling through the flag and the powerful symbolism of a cross in flames. This combination represents Britain’s symbolic leadership of both the war effort and ‘Christendom,’ evoking pan-European crusader armies as well as modern Christian unity. In the West, ‘the Crusades’ tended to refer to the military expeditions to the Holy Land, ordered by Pope Urban II in 1095 to recapture Jerusalem from Islam. The First Crusade managed to cross Asia Minor largely on foot, defeated several Turkish Seljuk armies in the field, then besieged and conquered the ancient cities of the Holy Land, including Nicaea,

56 Michael John Horswell, The Rise and Fall of British Crusader Medievalism, c.1825-1945 (Royal Holloway University of London: PhD Thesis, 2016), p. 256

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Figure 2.5: Join the Crusade: National Savings Certificates . Unknown, 1940-45 IWM PST 15624 [UK] Figure 2.6: Germany’s European Broadcast . Werner von Axster- Heudtlass, 1943. BND Plak 003-002-044 24

Antioch and in 1099, Jerusalem itself. 57 The Crusader States were subsequently established, the most important being the Principality of Antioch and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and lasted nearly two centuries till their eventual capture by the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in 1291. 58 Although the battles in the Holy Land were unknown to most Europeans in the 1940s, the emotive power of a mass Christian effort against foreign opponents was still compelling. By the twentieth century, ‘Crusading’ had become ameliorated to mean the broad sentiment of Christian opposition to evil, in this case the odious Nazi dominion of Europe, rather than Muslim occupation of the Holy Land The burning cross has obvious symbolic power both for the faithful and in the context of the crusades. After the capture of Jerusalem, the High Patriarch of the Holy Sepulchre would lead the Armies of the Crusader States with a piece of the ‘True Cross’ upon which Jesus was crucified. It would be in European hands till 1187, when it was captured by Salah ad-Din (Saladin) after his decisive victory against the Christians at the Horns of Hattin. 59 Whether or not civilians understood the significance didn’t matter, as the accompanying caption to the poster when it was displayed in The Guardian in August 1940 framed crusading in modern terms; “to us it is a Crusade to preserve our freedom and everything that makes life worth living.”60 Although no British posters reference specific Crusading battles or wars, troops stationed in the Mandate of Palestine were referred to as ‘Crusaders’ in the press after the capture of Jerusalem in 1917 and it’s defence during the Second World War. 61 Rather than explicitly referencing crusader history a combination of flag, cross and flame serves to frame the war as a ‘crusade’ based on British values of democracy and fairness. Fascist posters would similarly adapt the language of crusading to ameliorate the realities of the modern conflict and make them more palatable to their viewers. The Nazi poster Germany’s European Broadcast by artist Werner von Axster-Heudtlass shows the German eagle, long a symbol of national power, spreading its wings around Europe so as to shield it from outside attack. The broadcast is Germany’s promise to defend Europe from its foes. The Imperial or Party Eagle was as distinctive a national symbol as the Union Flag, and in each case these symbols are used to construe the modern war as a crusade against the other. This reflected a shift in German propaganda after the defeat of the 6 th Army at Stalingrad in February 1943. James Aulich has elucidated how “propaganda policy repositioned the war as a defensive struggle against Jewish-Bolshevik world domination;” with the venerable German Army as the continent’s guardian, “occupied Europe was recast as a unified anti- Bolshevik front with the German army as its only protector.” 62 The re-framing of the Nazi war effort from nationalist German expansion into a ‘Crusade’ to protect Europe can be seen most vividly in the name of

57 Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Crusades, 1095–1198,” in Luscombe, D. and Riley-Smith, J. (eds) The New Cambridge Medieval History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 538-542 58 J. H. Pryor, “The Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: The Crusader states,” in Geography, Technology, and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649–1571 . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 112 59 Norman Housley, “Saladin’s triumph over the crusader states; the battle of Hattin, 1187. History Today , (July 1987), Vol. 37, p. 23 60 ‘Join the Crusade’, The Guardian , 30 August 1940, p. 1. 61 Eitan Bar-Yosef, “The Last Crusade? British Propaganda and the Palestine Campaign, 1917-1918.” Journal of Contemporary History , Vol. 36, No. 1, (Jan 2001), pp. 87-88 62 James Aulich, War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication (London, New York: Thames and Hudson, 2011), p. 166

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Figure 2.7: He who comes with the sword shall die by the sword. Vladimir Ivanov. O Burova 1242-1942. 1942 Figure 2.9 : Narva 1219, and the symbol of 1944 . Unknown, 1944. IPG [USSR] Kongelige Bibliotek DH005698 [Den] Figure 2.8: Liberators of Pskov . Aleksandr Danilichev

(TASS Window # 1028 ), 1944 IPG [USSR] 26 the invasion of the Soviet Union: Operation Barbarossa. This was named after twelfth century Crusader, German King and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (1122-1190), also known as Kaizer Rotbat, or ‘Red Beard’. It is an irony of history that Hitler chose to name his ultimately abortive campaign against the Soviet Union after Barbarossa, when the Emperor’s own crusade east collapsed as a result of his drowning in the shallow River Saleph in Turkey on 10 June 1190. The German shift of tack from conquest to crusade began in early 1943, after progress in Russia was reversed at Stalingrad. As the military situation became progressively worse in Russia, the Germans used crusading rhetoric to try rally support and manpower. The Soviet Union’s references to the Crusades were far more explicitly historical. Prolific Russian artists Ivanov and Burova produced a large amount of Soviet historical posters, using designs that celebrate past battles and heroes of Russian history ranging across the previous millennium of history as well as mythology. The defeat of the Northern Crusade by an army led by Alexander Nevsky, Grand Prince of Novgorod formed the source material for several posters depicting Russian military victories. Ivanov and Burova’s poster He Who Comes with the Sword Shall Die by the Sword references the ancient Russian victories over the German Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, specifically the Battle on the Ice of 1242. The Northern Crusades (1147-1525) consisted of a series of military campaigns mounted against the pagan and non-Catholic Christian populations of North-Eastern Europe, chiefly carried out by the German order of Teutonic Knights, on the command of Pope Eugenius III who promised the same remission of sin for Baltic Crusaders as those venturing to the Holy Land. 63 This saw the German military order serve as a religious state, making war on enemies of the Catholic Church. Published in 1942, He Who Comes with the Sword lionises Nevsky as a ‘Russian’ hero, while drawing obvious parallels between the legendary Battle on the Ice and the still raging Battle of Stalingrad. The battle occurred because the Teutonic Knights and other Christian powers who aimed to subjugate and convert the pagan populations of the Baltics and Russia to Catholicism, as well as expand the border of Christendom eastwards. 64 The parallels between the Northern Crusade and 1941 German Invasion were quickly exploited by the Soviets. He who comes by the sword shows a large Nevsky and other Russian knights charging the Teutonic Knights, while in the foreground Soviet Cavalry rushes past a knocked out German tank. A quote from Stalin proclaims, “May the courageous example of our great predecessors inspire you in this war!” 65 The heroism of the Soviet soldier is made one with the nation- making mythical heroism of Nevsky and the other Russians defending Kievan Rus. The parallels between the Battle on the Ice and the modern Soviet plight in 1942 were uncannily apt. The 1242 battle saw the Novgorodian Army defeat a Teutonic army of equal size but superior armament; equipped with more plate-armoured knights and heavy cavalry. Similarly, to Operation Barbarossa 700 years later, the Germans were far better armed and equipped than the Russian defenders. The German forces attacked in a wedge formation aiming to

63 Barbara Bombi, “The Debate on the Baltic Crusades and the Making of Europe.” History Compass 11/9 (2013) p. 751 64 Richard Hellie, “Alexander Nevskii’s April 5, 1242 Battle on the Ice.” Russian History, Vol. 33, Issue 2-4, (01 Jan 2006), p. 284 65 Ivanov, V. O Burova- Alexander Nevsky- He who comes with the sword shall die by the sword . 1242-1942. 1942 IPG

27 smash through the Russian lines, managing to breach the front and set foot on the shore of the icy lake. Richard Hellie, historian of Russian History, contends that, like their Nazi descendants, the Teutonic Knights believed the Russian defenders to be defeated once they lost substantial ground after their initial lightning attack, only to be repelled by tenacious resistance from the infantry, who rushed and defeated the mounted German knights. 66 The victorious Rus’ then pursued and corralled the Germans who had fled into the centre of the lake, where legend holds the ice cracked, swallowing the invaders into the depths. 67 Nevsky was a widely known figure, and the Battle on the Ice a key tenet of Russian nationalism predating the Soviets. Indeed, Donald Ostrowski has shown that the legend of the Teuton’s defeat was already deployed as a propaganda tool by the Russian state for centuries, who revised and exaggerated reports of the battle to aggrandise historic Russian achievements. 68 In 1938, Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein released Alexander Nevskii , an epic drama depicting the German invasion and the triumphant Battle on the Ice. Hellie has argued it is the historical importance of the defeat of the German eastward Crusade and Eisenstein’s film that ensured the fame of the Battle in the 20 th Century, as well as clear parallels between the Teutonic Crusaders and the modern Nazi invaders. 69 Danilichev’s Liberators of Pskov similarly calls on Russian victory over the German invaders in the thirteenth century. This TASS Window depicts contemporary Red Army troops liberating Pskov, greeted by Nevsky on horseback. This is both a direct comparison to the Novgorodian recapture of the town in 1242, as well as an allegory for the gratitude of the Soviet state and people towards their brave soldiers. The Red Army soldiers, carrying the PPSHE submachine gun that by 1944 was the ubiquitous tool of frontline shock-troops, stand over the bodies of a Wehrmacht soldier and a Teutonic knight. The two Germans are clearly delineated by their clothes and respective weapons; a black submachine gun resembling an MP40, and a knight’s longsword. The TASS Window’s caption places the Red Army as firm successors to Nevsky’s legendary victory. It states that the “legends of Lake Chud, The great feats of antiquity, Are once again resurrected By the liberators of Pskov!” The Red Army’s “heroic forefathers are welcoming their valiant descendants”, who had been crowned with glory for upholding the ancient tradition of defeating the “German savages.’’ 70 Like, the Battle on the Ice poster, and other posters calling on past victories, this propaganda goes beyond just praising the success of troops. It places the soldiers experience within a grandiose narrative of national history, placing the viewer in the company of Nevsky and ancient Russian heroes. The aim of this, of course, is to convince the viewer to fight harder in the contemporary war, out of national pride. In contrast to the British, the Soviets had no qualms repurposing their “usable history,’’ meaning Soviet posters called on both famous Russian victories as well as the leaders who achieved them. The Nazis also called on past battles from the Thirteenth Century, particularly the Livonian Crusades (1219) as well as a more generalised idea of Crusading as the defence of Europe against outside attack. The Livonian Crusades were the German and Danish campaigns

66 Hellie, “Battle on the Ice.” P. 285 67 “The Chronicle of Novgorod, 1017-1471” (Cambridge University Press: Camden Third Series . Vol. 25, 1914) pp. 85-86 68 Donald Ostrowski, “Alexander Nevskii’s “Battle on the Ice”: The Creation of a Legend”, Russian History , Vol. 33, Issue 2-4 901 Jan 2006), p. 294 69 Hellie, “Battle on the Ice.” P. 283 70 Aleksandr Danilichev, Liberators of Pskov (TASS Window #1028), 1944 IPP

28 against the Baltic states during the Northern Crusades of the 12 th century, ending in Danish domination of Estonia. The Teutonic Crusaders, the same organisation that would attack Novgorod and be defeated by Nevsky in 1242, were attempting to defeat and convert the pagan tribes of Latvia and Estonia. They were assisted in 1219 by Denmark, who wished to expand eastwards, winning victory and building the Castrum Danorum, a fortress that still stands in the centre of Tallinn today. In the style of Waffen-SS recruiting poster ubiquitous to this genre of German posters, Narva 1219, and the Symbol of 1944, a recruitment poster designed for Denmark uses the standard Nazi template of co-opting national symbolism and reapplying it as an endorsement of Nazi war aims. The poster depicts the 1219 Battle of Lyndanisse, where the Danes led by King Valdemar II and German Crusaders conquered Estonia for Christianity. The Crusaders had been surprised by an Estonian attack and were holding off counter-attacks only as long as Archbishop Anders Sunesen could keep his arms raised to pray for victory. As his arms sunk for the last time, a red flag bearing a white cross - the Dannebrog - appeared in the sky and fell to earth. Valdemar seized it and showed the flag to his troops, who rallied to their king, found their courage and defeated the Estonians. 71 Clearly, the Dannebrog , and the conquest of Estonia was an emotive part of Danish national history. The flag, a white cross on a red field, was an established Crusader symbol, and would have served in the 20 th century to evoke Danish patriotic feeling, as well as a historical association with the Northern Crusades for the educated or nationally conscious. As with the British Join the Crusade , the national flag is a key component identifying the audience with the modern national cause. National flags serve as perfect self-identifiers in propaganda posters, and serve as the ‘strongest, clearest’ statement of national identity. Karen A. Cerulo, discussing the symbolism of flags and national anthems, has argued that flags serve as ‘modern totems,’ signs that have unique and special relationships to the nation they represent, that serve to differentiate them from each other and “reaffirm their identity boundaries.”72 If the flags are totems that define nations, then posters using flags attempt to articulate some kind of world view and twin it to the national identity of the audience. For instance, in Narva, 1219 and the Symbol of 1944 , the flag is used to link Danish national self- conception to the Nazi, or rather, ‘Germanic’ cause against Bolshevism, while in the British Join the Crusade , the flag serves only to link the audience’s idea of their role in the war to an abstract and ill-defined melange of Christian and ‘British democratic values.’73 The historical conquest of ‘Narva’ was a very useful twist of history for the Nazis, as they had a battle involving the cooperation of Germans and Danes, in Estonia, against hated pagans. The foreground of Symbol of 1944 features SS troops advancing to Estonia: many of the 6-7000 Danish recruits to the Waffen-SS were to meet their ends there, as well as over half of 2500 recruits to the Dutch division. 74 The battle ended in retreat for the Germans as the Soviets broke through and threatened to encircle Army Group North. Although it is what Tuttle Ross would describe as an inapt metaphor, the conflation of Danish national values and the principles of the Waffen-SS appealed to some, mirroring the past union of Danes and Germans, albeit in a

71 Stefan Pajung, Dannebrog , (Danmarks historie. Aarhus University, March 2019) [Accessed 22/04/2019 http://danmarkshistorien.dk/leksikon-og-kilder/vis/materiale/dannebrog/ ] 72 Karen A. Cerulo, “Symbols and the World System: National Anthems and Flags.” Sociological Forum , Vol. 8, No. 2 (June 1993), p. 244 73 Fox, “Careless Talk.” pp. 943-948 74 Martin Gutmann, “Debunking the Myth of the Volunteers: Transnational Volunteering in the Nazi Waffen-SS Officer Corps during the Second World War.” Contemporary European History, 22, 4 (2013), p. 587

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Figure 2.11: Alarm! Sign up as a front fighter. SS-Regiment Norwegen , Harald Damsleth, March 1943. BND Plak 003-025-039 [Nor] Figure 2.12: Forebears and Offspring . Pavel Sokolov-Skalia 30 (TASS Window #996-997), 1944 IPG [USSR] twisted way. The quirks of history could serve all sides of the war, with the Nazis and Soviets both referencing battles of the Northern Crusades involving the German Teutonic Knights that were only 23 years apart (1219-1242). Different sides referencing the same historical conflicts they fought against each other is a common feature of all nations historical posters. References to past battles, images of ancient or medieval weaponry functioned as potent links to the national past. They could be used to connect the broader fight and specific campaigns or production targets to the audience’s national identity. Norwegian poster Alarm! Sign up as a front fighter by Harald Damsleth demonstrates how simple and effective design can harness national history and direct it against a modern foe, all the more remarkable for being done at the behest of an occupying power. This poster contains the archetypal Viking sword and round shield, embossed with a stylised double sig rune of the SS or Norse swastika. An unseen warrior wields these weapons against a ferocious red wolf attacking from the right of the frame, intentionally mirroring the appearance on a map of the Soviet advance into Europe. The sword and shield associate the viewer with Norse martial culture, and the implication that it must be wielded against the Soviet Union. Other posters use weapons from a countries past to encourage production as well as national pride. Sokolov-Skalia’s TASS Window Forebears and Offspring , links the forging of swords for the heroes of Russia’s past, to the Soviet worker’s creation of tanks and other arms. The caption for this poster is written in verses of stylised language that imitates epic folk songs, and utilises vocabulary taken from the epic tradition. 75 While Damsleth’s red wolf imparts to Norwegian viewers that they face a terrible, beast-like threat they must be prepared to fight, Sokolov-Skalia manages to place the modern Russian as both a hard working Communist, and simultaneously a son of great Russian heroic tradition. Many posters, in both Axis and Allied territory, utilise sword motifs to represent military strength or arms production. The symbolic meaning of iron, the sword and the forge resonated both with German Kultur and Russian epic myths of its heroes; “the symbolism of iron echoed down the ages from the nails of the cross to medieval chivalry and crusading knighthood.”76 Aulich has explained that the persistent symbols of sword and forge signify the “mythic medieval Teutonic past and the power of an industrial present based on steel manufacture.” 77 The Soviets similarly used archaic weaponry and forges to represent the modern armaments industry, again linking the modern war effort to national history. Weapons of war could be used as persuasive images to associate national history with contemporary conflict. This chapter has shown how imagery of ancient and medieval battles and wars were utilised in historical posters. Because these events took place far in the distant past, they could be used in broader ways than wars from recent history. Often, it was ideals of the past rather than direct historical parallels that were used. Crusading as a battle for good is one instance, while the Nazi claims that they were protecting European culture from barbarism is another. The audience is not supposed to be convinced by accurate history; these posters appealed to a broader sense of national identity by evoking foundational or ancient conflicts that were deeply associated with the nations. Chapter 3 shall continue analysis of past battles, discussing posters referencing early modern wars from the 16 th Century up to the First World War.

75 Translations from the Russian by Anastasia von Ravensberg (Leiden, 2019) 76 James Aulich, War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication , p. 56 77 Ibid , p. 56

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Chapter Three: “We Beat ‘Em Before! We’ll Beat ‘Em Again!” Early-Modern and Modern Conflicts Images of history from the more recent past referenced military engagements which had emotive power for national populations. This included the Anglo-Dutch naval rivalry in the seventeenth century, the well-known Napoleonic Wars and the recent memory of the traumatic and catastrophic First World War. This category consists of posters that use historical imagery from the fifteenth century up to 1918-19. I shall show how the three nation’s posters all used very similar forms and design features that saw them utilise diverse historical events to the same patriotic ends. These posters are grouped chronologically into three sub-groups, the first referencing conflicts between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. This includes mainly references to sea exploration in the Age of Sail, and Naval warfare. Considering the importance of the naval Battle of the Atlantic (1939-45), it is no surprise that ocean-going ships are so present in these posters. The British and Russians are conspicuously absent from this category, meaning the majority were Axis produced. The second group consists of posters referencing the Napoleonic Wars, which was perhaps the first conflict so far for which was recent enough for populations in the 1940s to feel a tangible historic connection to. There is a sub-genre of posters that reference several specific time periods, alluding to multiple past victories, that span from Napoleon to the third chronological grouping: The First World War and the Russian Revolution. These posters reference history that was still memory for the majority of participants in the Second World War. The British reference their eventual victory in the First World War, while German posters steadfastly declare that the calamity of 1918 would not happen again. Russian posters referencing this time period unsurprisingly focus on commemorating the October Revolution of 1917 and the hard-fought battles to defend it from counterrevolutionaries and capitalist conspiracy including, ironically, their now-allies, the British. This chapter will show how the British, Germans and Russians made extremely contradictory ideological assertions with the same core, nationalist message, to emulate past victories or redeem past defeats. The Germans had a far more developed programme of historical posters than the Allies and were sophisticated in their use of widely recognised symbols and motifs. The Occupying regime co-opted Dutch and Scandinavian naval tradition, creating anti-British and anti- Russian propaganda that was recognisable to the public and easily applicable to the Second World War. Historical imagery was incorporated if it could be effectively related to the war effort. In this case, the importance of the seas to the war ensured sailing ships were enlisted into propaganda. The trade routes across the Atlantic Ocean were Britain’s lifelines; merchant convoys brought vital food for the population, and the troops and arms necessary for the eventual Allied invasion of Europe.78 The sea was a crucial theatre. The battle for naval supremacy in the Atlantic between the Royal Navy and Air Force against the pocket battleships and U-Boats of the Kriegsmarine lasted the entire war. The importance the public attached to naval victories, and the cultural relevance of recognisable ships in the history of the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway ensured the creation of posters containing imagery of galleons, longships and sea monsters. The British used no such arcane imagery, and instead focus on realist paintings of modern military vehicles engaged in dynamic action to depict the naval theatre.

78 Christopher M. Bell, Churchill and Sea Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 206 & Jonathan Dimbleby, The Battle of the Atlantic (London: Penguin, 2015), pp. 355-8

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Figure 3.1: Seafaring is Necessary! Reichsbund Deutscher Seegeltung . Unknown, 1939. BND Plak 003-008-021 [NG] Figure 3.2: Our ancestors…went out! They sailed… Consultancy for 33 Labou r Abroad , Remaco, A. 1944. GVN AF-00063 [NL]

Figure 3.3: With Mussert, Love Sea. Unknown, NSB, 1942. Figure 3.5 Fight with us! Unknown, 1943. GVN AF-00575 GVN AE-00155 [NL]

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Similar to how posters involving past battles typically contained images of past and modern troops side by side, navy posters often juxtaposed the high masts of historic sailing ships with the low, blocky profiles of modern warships. The German poster Seafaring is Necessary! released just before the start of the war, shows a classic tall ship with sail in the foreground, whilst behind it the dark silhouette of a twentieth century German battleship steams westward. An image of Germany hangs above, suggesting that both in the past and present naval power was important to the nation’s success. Applying Ross’ epistemic merit model, we can see how the historical elements of this poster are intended to manipulate the viewer. The epistemically defective link between the representation of past German or European seafaring and the modern navy is intended to frame the German war effort as part of the same imagined history of benevolent European exploration and trade. This makes sense, as appeals to a sense of adventure and shared European maritime culture are more appealing than images of the inside of a U-boat on the bottom of the English Channel. Images of ships proved to be adaptable symbols, that were used to advocate for military action and trade, as well as a broad cultural touchstone. In the Occupied Netherlands, the Nazi regime viewed the Dutch as fellow Germans, and efforts were made to alleviate the fears of the people and recruit youths. The SS were ordered by Himmler to “avoid any behaviour that might offend the sensibilities of the Dutch people,” because the vision of a Greater Germanic Reich required there be no mistreatment of “racially valuable” people of German or Nordic descent. 79 As such, propaganda was designed to persuade the Dutch audience to sign up to fight or to support the Occupation through emphasis on a proud history of empire and maritime trade. Produced in the Netherlands in 1944, Remaco’s Our ancestors…went out! They sailed , is structurally very similar to the previous example, and again shows how maritime culture was considered a cultural touchstone that could engage audiences with an history of seafaring. The caption reads “Our ancestors went out and sailed, they sailed all the seas, they searched for their fortune somewhere else and…they found it! Now still, abroad offers good chances, for brave chaps, who don’t want to keep fooling around!”80 This appeal to work overseas presented an opportunity that would reinforce the views of Dutch youth during the early Occupation who felt the victorious Germans represented a new force of dynamism, as “the disciplined enthusiasm of the well-equipped German troops left impressionable Dutch-men [in] awe.”81 This poster is an advertisement for the Consultancy for Labour Abroad, a consensual labour scheme for Dutch youths who could work in the armaments industry in Germany, contrary to the exotic locales the poster implies. Again, images of sailing ships are used as a vague metaphor for European cultural values and exploration. The Age of Sail was clearly thought to be iconic for the Dutch, as a 1942 election poster for Anton Mussert, head of the National Socialist movement in the Netherlands, shows another sail ship centre frame. The background is a hand the colour of the Dutch tricolour, suggesting Mussert and the NSB were hoping to appeal to Dutch patriotism through easily recognisable symbols. Wooden ships were also used to incite violence against enemies of the Nazis in the ‘Germanic’ Occupied Territories.

79 Mark P. Gingerich, “Waffen SS Recruitment in the “Germanic Lands,” 1940-41.” The Historian , (07/1997), Volume 59, p. 820 80 Fig 3.4 Remaco, A. Our ancestors…went out! They sailed… Consultancy for Labour Abroad , 1944. GVN AF-00063 [NL], translated courtesy of my colleague Heleen Wink 81 Andrew McGregor, “In the Uniform of the Enemy.” World War II Magazine (February 2018), p. 34

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Figure 3.4 : Always the same enemy! Fight with us! 1673-1943. Unknown, Kriegsmarine, 1943. GVN AF- 00234 [NL]

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The German navy, the Kriegsmarine , attempted to call on the most famous incident of Anglo- Dutch warfare to incite Dutch support of the war effort. Always the same enemy! Fight with us! 1673-1943 shows a Dutch race-built galleon alongside a Nazi submarine sailing towards London. The British Union Flag is torn at the top, while London is backlit by an orange glow, suggesting to the audience that Nazi air attacks on the city have been successful. The specific historical event referred to is the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672-1674), itself part of a wider European war between the powerful Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of France. 1673 saw Dutch forces under Admiral De Ruyter defeat the Royal Navy in the key battles of Schooneveld and Texel, gaining a strategic victory by causing much damage to the English ships and preventing them from reaching the coast of Holland. 82 These Dutch victories led to a treaty ending the war the following year. Historian Charles Wilson noted that ironically, the wars between England and the Dutch Republic displayed features common to conflicts in the twentieth century, namely “bitter national feeling” and the “unscrupulous use of propaganda against the enemy.”83 Clearly the aim of linking Dutch naval victories against the English to the modern German sea war against the British Empire was to suggest that a patriotic Dutchman should take up the fight of his ancestors and fight the Royal Navy once more. Propaganda in the occupied territories often aimed to highlight the historic crimes of the British and decry them as greedy and ruthless imperialists. “Fight with us ,” likely by the same artist as “Always the Same Enemy! ” presents the British as the natural enemy of Dutchmen in a more abstract way. A sea serpent, sporting the Union Jack and a crown, represents Britain, blood dripping from its claws as a German warship approaches. Regardless of historical literacy, in both cases, the British are presented as historic or natural enemies of the Dutch. In the Nordic countries of Denmark and Norway, which the Nazis considered ‘Germanic,’ representations of Vikings and old Norse imagery were utilised in historical propaganda. Just as in the Netherlands, the Nazis co-opted a national maritime tradition that could be related to naval warfare against the British, in this case the Viking period. The 1942 classic format Waffen-SS recruitment poster by O Ang, Join the Waffen-SS Norske Legion , features the carved prow of a longship, emblematic of Viking seafaring, as a backdrop to a blond Norwegian youth shaking hands with an SS soldier. Images of these longships had powerful cultural symbolism, more so than the galleons of the Dutch. The caption cheerfully exalts the audience to join the Norske Legion “with your friends to fight Bolshevism,” subtly implying that the Nazis are fighting both to defend European culture and the audience’s immediate friends and family. 84 It could further be read as an allusion to German-Norwegian brotherhood, as they are cut from the same Germanic cloth and therefore share similar values and wider Norse culture. There are many examples of Nazi posters and other images produced in Scandinavia featuring longships, of which this selection is emblematic. In Denmark, the local Nazi Party (DNSAP) produced a striking poster featuring a swastika on the sail of a longship, that further associated Nazi goals with preserving national history and tying it to their ideological defence of Europe. It is also possible that the Nazis were attempting to play on the historical context of the Vikings famous raids around Europe to

82 Jack S. Levy, “The Rise and Decline of the Anglo-Dutch Rivalry, 1609-1689,” in William R. Thompson (ed.) Great Power Rivalries (University of South Carolina Press, 1999), pp. 185-6 83 Charles Wilson, Profit and Power: A Study of England and the Dutch Wars (London, 1957), p. 152 84 Caption translated from Norwegian courtesy of my colleague Bertel Bertelsen

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Figure 3.6: Join the Waffen-SS Norse Legion to fight with friends Figure 3.7: DNSAP Meeting 5 Landsstævne Slagelse, 11-12 Juni . against Bolshevism! O. Ang , Waffen-SS , June 1942. BND Plak 003 - Unknown, 1938. Design Museum Denmark (DMD) P-1000: RF2622 025-037 [Nor] [Den] 38 encourage support for their modern attempt at mass violence. Longships were highly recognisable, and were historically used by various Viking groups to raid the coasts of much of Europe, including Saxon England during the ninth and tenth centuries and the Kievan Rus. One of the most famous Viking myths tells of the legendary King Ragnar Lothbrok, who pioneered navigation west to England and led several invasions, succeeded by his fearsome sons, Ubba, Bjorn Ironside and Ivar the Boneless. The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok tell how on hearing of their fathers’ death in Northumbria, the sons of Ragnar gathered their longboats and sailed to England, their carved dragon prows striking fear into the heart of the Saxons. 85 Historical imagery was used here to foster support for the Nazis through reference to maritime tradition. The Soviets had no historical posters concerning their Navy, as it was rather small and did not play a decisive role in the War, while British depictions of their Navy showed realistic images of modern ships or planes engaged in combat, highlighting Allied superiority in industry and arms manufacture. While the Nazi authorities attempted to win over occupied populations by assuring them that Hitler intended to protect their national culture, the British and Russians reassured their people by reminding them of the fate of the last dictator to try taking over Europe. For Soviet propagandists, the Nazi onslaught in 1941 presented obvious parallels with Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia that could be easily presented in propaganda. Napoleon had invaded Russia to assert his authority over Tsar Alexander I, who was resisting the French Continental System. As with the Nazis more than a century later, the inclement weather and vast distances in Russia made a quick campaign impossible. The parallels between 1812 and the Eastern Front are numerous, most notably the French and German leadership committing their resources, both human and materiel to seeking a decisive winning blow, even at the cost of huge losses. John Markham has shown that Napoleon was determined to beat the Russians in a straight fight, and foolishly allowed himself to be caught out by the winter and deaths by attrition. 86 Soviet posters present Russian victory as the only logical outcome of invasion from the west. Prolific Russian poster artists Ivanov and Burova’s Glory, Honour, Remembrance to Heroic Deeds of Valour shows the Russian General Kutuzov, who fought Napoleon, looking over Soviet troops advancing. The caption is the classic quote from Stalin, “May the courageous example of our great predecessors inspire you in this war.”87 Following the standard format of posters referencing past battles, the allusion here is clearly that the war against Hitler deserves maximum effort from Russian citizens, and that it will be a victory as Russia has won before. Other posters are more humorous in tone. Landres’, Napoleon was freezing. Let’s heat things up for Hitler! has two panels: the top shows dejected French troops retreating through the Russian winter, while the bottom shows a goblin-like Hitler fleeing the USSR, pursued by a sky full of Soviet bombers. The Kukryniksy, a collective of Soviet poster artists, published the amusing Napoleon was defeated. The same will happen with the arrogant Hitler! in 1941, showing a silhouette of Napoleon being driven back with a pitchfork, while in the foreground a plump, baby sized Hitler in military dress is pushed back by a Red rifle butt. Darracott and Loftus reported that Kukryniksy’s stencilled and fierce cartoons that defied the

85 Ben Waggoner (trans.) The Sagas of Ragnar Lodbrok (New Haven: The Troth, 2009), pp. 32-33, for an example of the symbolic power of longships, see Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom 86 J David Markham, “Napoleon in Russia: Questionable judgement and critical errors,” The RUSI Journal , (Dec 2003), 148:6, p. 68 87 Translated by Anastasia Petrovskaya

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Figure 3.8: May the courageous example of great predecessors inspire Figure 3.9: Napoleon was freezing. Let’s heat things up for Hitler! 1941. you in this war. J. Stalin. 1812 - Glory, Honour, Remembrance to Landres. Iskusstvo, 1941. Maria Lafont, Soviet Posters: The Sergio Heroic Deeds of Valour! Ivanov, V. & Burova, O., Iskusstvo IWM Grigorian Collection (London: Prestel Publishing, 2008) .P 88 [USSR] PST 0183 [USSR] 40

Figure 3.10: Napoleon was defeated. The same will happen with the arrogant Hitler! Kukryniksy, 1941, IWM 3142

Figure 3.11 So it was...so it will be! Dolgorukov, N. A. 1941- Yeltsin Pres 41 Lib

Figure 3.12: We fought the enemy with lances. We fought the enemy with rifles. And now we are fighting him with weapons of steel wherever we catch him . Kukryniksy, Iskusstvo. 1941. IWM PST 3143 [USSR] Figure 3.13: Wait! Read the story of how Rus ’fought the war. And as now the case is argued, our people are fighting with the fascist ! Mavrins. T. A. Moscow, Iskusstvo 1941- in DEM SP 98 [USSR] 42

Nazis were much admired in Britain and the United States. 88 Perhaps the most striking poster referencing Napoleon is N. A. Dolgorukov’s So it was...so it shall be , a simple illustration showing a plump Napoleon chased away by pitchfork and lance, while in the centre a clawed Hitler is pierced by a Red bayonet. This simple statement embodies this genre of propaganda. In all these posters, Hitler is compared unfavourably to his French predecessor and the failure of the Nazi offensive implied to be obvious, since the French failed in 1812. The Soviets produced a unique genre of historical posters that utilised multiple panels to tell a cohesive story. There are several such posters, of which I include the two best examples. Mark Edele has dubbed these “narrative posters,” posters which break up a story into a series of disconnected images to tell a longer story. 89 Kukryniksy’s We smashed the enemy with lances… demonstrates the principle of historical posters extremely clearly. It shows that recognisable art, punchy captions and relevant history can be used very effectively. The top panel shows a Teutonic knight speared on the lances of the Kievan Rus, the second panel, Imperial German troops fleeing before rifle bayonets, and the third, a ghoulish Hitler about to be crushed by “weapons of steel,” a Soviet tank. The inclusion of the First World War in this poster is interesting, as Lenin’s first move once he had power was to pull out of the war with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. However, as we know the details of history do not matter in these posters; the fact that some Russians fought the Germans in the first war is enough. The level of ethnic hatred towards Germans in some parts of Russia was also a factor that ensured posters depicted them as the ‘other.’ T. A. Mavrins produced a similar example, Wait! Read the story of how Rus’ fought the war, which shows Russian victory in a number of conflicts: Nevsky cleaving a German crusader in two and driving off the yellow skinned Mongols, the Russian armies fighting off Napoleon in 1812 and then the Kaiser from 1914-17. The final panel shows Hitler advancing towards the Red Army, who are ready to repel them. Edele has noted that in these posters, every picture shows the same situation of invaders being driven back, and although in the last panel Hitler advances, the “law of history has been established,” and Hitler’s fate is clear. 90 In Russia, the defeat of Napoleon and other external threats were co-opted by Soviet propaganda to boost morale and national pride. Now we come finally to the most recent conflict used in these posters; the First World War. The British Empire, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union each had a different interpretation of the war that appeared very clearly in their historical posters. The British had their victory, the Germans their defeat, and the Russians their revolution. British propaganda had a light touch around the First World War, conscious that it was an open wound in the psyche of the British public. For people in the 1940s, the Great War was a memory, not a history lesson. As such, it was used much in the same way history from the more distant past was used; in a very removed, sanitised way that presented 1918 as another success in a long line of victories. Perhaps the best designed British historical posters are Pat Keely’s We Beat ‘Em Before, We Will Beat ‘Em Again series, consisting of three posters referencing the First World War. There are several designs and prototypes of this poster in the National Archives, suggesting it was a theme specifically requested by management. The first, Figure 3.15, shows three British soldiers from different periods of history, similar to the panel strip narrative posters produced

88 Darracott & Loftus, Second World War Posters , p. 8 89 Edele, “Paper Soldiers,” p. 94 90 Ibid , p. 96

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Figure 3.14 We Beat Em Before. We will beat ‘em again . Pat Keely, 1939 - Figure 3.15 : We Beat ‘Em Before. We Will Beat ‘Em Again! Unknown, 45, TNA (The National Archives UK) INF 3-135 c.1940, TNA INF 3-140 [UK] 44

45 Figure 3.16: We Beat ‘Em Before. We Will Beat Them Again. 1939-45. Pat Keely, TNA INF 3-136 [UK] by the Soviets. The rearmost figure wears a round metal helmet and carriers a halberd or poleaxe, suggesting a combatant in medieval battles. The middle figure carried a bayonetted rifle but wears a large hat typical of nineteenth century wars, specifically those against Napoleon. The red colour may also represent the iconic uniform of the Redcoats, distinctive colour of the armies of the British Empire until the late nineteenth century. The foremost figure again wields a rifle with bayonet, but sports the dark khaki, rucksack and distinctive steel Brodie helmet of a First World War Tommy, the typical British soldier on the Western Front. The three successive soldiers brandishing their weapons combined with the defiant caption create a visually dynamic use of history. The historical conflicts are not exactly defined, instead identifiable only by visual cues. This serves to create the impression of a history of British victory against continental powers stretching from victory in the recent Great War, to the defeat of Napoleon, which British people would have been at least somewhat familiar with, all the way back into the depths of history represented by the halberdier. Pat Keely created a continuity of victory that was easy for audiences to understand. Figure 3.16, Keely’s second We Beat ‘Em Before , Figure 3.16, shows two Tommies, both in Brodie helmets, one wielding a bayonetted rifle and the other manning what appears to be a Vickers heavy machine-gun, both widely used and recognisable weapons from the First World War. In this case, the poster appeals to the memory of the hard-won victory of 1918, both to encourage indignation at a resurgent Germany and assure that British victory would come again. Figure 3.15, another We Beat ‘Em Before , shows two German soldiers held at bayonet point, the first an Imperial German soldier with a distinctive pickelhaube spiked helmet, the second a swastika marked Wehrmacht soldier in the 1940s stahlhelm . The message of these images is clear: that despite initial German successes in 1940-42, these Nazis are still the same bunch of ‘Jerrys’ that the British Army decisively defeated in 1918, albeit with the help of the French, Americans and the vast manpower reserves of the British Empire. The key message is that as before, the German war machine will be ground down and driven back within its borders. Unsurprisingly, the Germans drew different conclusions from the war. The cataclysmic defeat of 1918 ensured that the Nazi propaganda machine utilised the trauma of the war in compelling propaganda. Like the British, such imagery would have been relatable to anyone over the age of 25 or so. We can again see how these posters play on a populations personal relationship with the past, in this case playing on feelings about defeat. One example, The old hatred, the old goal , shows the classic British poster of the First World War, Destroy this mad brute!, depicting Germans as violent barbarians. The German posters text explains how the British press described Germans as animals, and how Allied propaganda was a pack of lies. This reflected the German belief in the efficacy of British Great War propaganda. The Germans were determined to assert that the expected Allied invasion of Occupied Europe would not lead to a calamity like 1918 again. Koekkoek’s 1918 is not 1943 presents the differences between the weakened German Empire and the Nazi Greater German Reich. On the left of the German soldier- in 1918- agitated, dishevelled communists throw rocks and protest, egged on by big (possibly Jewish) business, while women and children cower in the foreground. On the right, in the present of 1943, happy families play, clean and healthy workers smile, while a housewife and a military official look on approvingly. As 1943 was 25 years after 1918, and the crucial fourth year of the war, it is no surprise that German propagandists created comparisons between the two. This can be

46

Figure 3.17: The old hatred-the old goal! Unknown, NSDAP ‘Slogan of the week’ No. 36, 5 -11.9.1939. BND Plak 003-009-139 [NG]

Figure 3.18: 1918 is not 1943 . Koekkoek M.A Zn. 1943. GVN AG-00586 [NG]

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Figure 3.19: 1943 is not 1918 . Unknown, 1943. GVN AG-00175 [NL] Figure 3.20: Atlantic Wall. 1943 is not 1918 . 1943. GVN AG-00238 [NL] 48 clearly seen in two posters that proclaim the strength of the Atlantic Wall, both titled “1943 is not 1918 .” The first shows Western Europe ringed by a wall of steel, representing the Nazi fortification of the Northern European coast and their effort to present themselves as defenders of European culture. Similarly, the second poster shows the large and strong defences, complete with comically large gun barrels. Rather than show a past victory and declare it the obvious outcome in the present, Nazi propagandists harnessed German resentment of the defeat in 1918 and contrast it with the successes and strong military position of the Nazis in the early/mid war. The implication is clear; this time, the right people are in control, and rebellion at home is unthinkable. These posters also achieved the classic function of presenting the Nazi regime as an improvement on life in the past. The dismal Russian experience of the First World War was overshadowed by the Revolution in 1917, leading to posters commemorating the revolution. Rather than victory in a hard won great power war, or stoking the resentment of defeat, the Soviets used history of the war to celebrate the people’s achievement of socialist revolution. There are countless examples of these, so I will discuss only two examples from different points in the war. In Under the Banner of Lenin and Stalin, Forward to Victory the 25th anniversary of the revolution is celebrated, and Red Army troops brandishing weapons rush forwards, towards the left of frame representing the Germans to the West. In 1942 the war in Russia was going badly for the Soviets, hence posters such as this were designed to inspire revolutionary fervour and the will to fight. By 1945, the tone had changed dramatically; Solovyev’s TASS Window 1917- 1945 The 28 th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution! released the year the war ended, shows a peasant women, a worker and a PPSHE armed Red Army trooper, all looking forward optimistically to the future, while behind them the hammer and sickle waves and triumphantly adjacent to a vignette of the Revolution. The defeat of Nazi Germany allowed propaganda to become less explicitly focused on military activities, and what was in 1942 designed to boost fighting morale was by 1945 a self-congratulatory endorsement of Soviet culture. This chapter has shown how historical posters that reference conflicts from the early modern and modern periods used motifs and imagery that could be linked to the current conflict and would be understood by the audience. Historical posters were also constructed around how applicable such imagery would be to modern concerns, hence the Nazis infatuation with seafaring. The three powers had different approaches, but the shadow of the First World War meant they all referenced the conflict, producing three different interpretations; victory, defeat and revolution. The final chapter concerns the use of individuals in historical posters, from Nevsky, through De Ruyter to Lenin.

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Figure 3.22: 1917-1945 The 28 th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution! Figure 3.21: Under the Banner of Lenin and Stalin, Forward to Solovyev, M. (TASS Window #1320-1321), 1945 IPG Victory! 1917-1942 Unknown, 1942 YPL 50

Chapter Four: Heroes, Ethno-nationalist Representations and Historical Individuals This final group of historical posters is made up of those that depict specific individuals from the past, legendary figures, and ethno-nationalist representations. These representations consist of images of historic groups that represent the martial tradition of a nation, such as Germanic Vikings, Russian bogatyrs and oddly, British domestic and imperial unity. These representations can be pejorative also, in the example of the brutish and ape-like German ‘Hun’ from Great War propaganda, or Second World War representations of Britain as fat imperialist John Bull. There is something of an overlap between legendary individuals and these ethno-nationalist representations, as they both serve the same rhetorical function of linking the intended audience’s national identity to the goals of the propagandist. Posters referencing real, historic individuals will be discussed last. These individuals are military or political leaders, whose will or actions are used as a call to arms. What these posters share is the use of historical individuals, real or allegorical, to imply to audiences who identify with said figures that whatever the poster is asking or encouraging is a natural extension of national history and tradition, and thus the right thing to do. This chapter will explore and compare the individuals used in these posters. We begin with the Soviet use of Bogatyrs , warriors in the ancient Kievan Rus that were the heroes of byliny , oral Russian folk stories. They wandered Russia, fighting evil, defending their homeland and generally committing heroic acts, making them broadly comparable to Western Knights-Errant or the British King Arthur’s legendary Knights of the Round Table. 91 The most famous of these bogatyrs was the legendary hero Ilya Muromets, the subject of numerous byliny and the namesake of Imperial Russia’s First World War gargantuan and advanced four-engine bomber designed by Igor Sikorsky. 92 The image of Muromets would have been instantly recognisable to Russians, and the tradition of military valour had obvious use for Soviet propaganda. Stalin himself was “prone to see situations in terms of historical parallels,” and he believed that Russian development in the past had been prompted by external danger, which led him to believe in the necessity of a new state building process. 93 The Stalinist era saw the increased use of historical and mythical figures in Soviet propaganda, ‘Bolshevik Nationalism’ was designed both to homogenise the Soviet Union into a superpower and consolidate patriotism for the inevitable conflict with fascism. Soviet propaganda intended to convince audiences that the war effort against Germany was a new expression of Russian heroism, by conflating the Red Army and industrial workers with the bogatyrs . In the late nineteenth century, Russian artist Victor Vasetnov painted Bogatyrs (1898), depicting the three most famous; from the left, Dobryna Nikitich, Ilya Muromets and Alyosha Popovich. These pre-revolutionary depiction enables us to see what the defined image of bogatyrs was before the Soviets adapted it for their own use. We can observe the key visual identifiers that was the established representation, which were; bearded men in armour, on horseback, wielding spear, short sword or bow, sporting a shield and conical metal helmet. Iskusstvo artist D. A. Shmarinov produced in 1943 “ In the heroic deeds of grandchildren, I see grandfather’s glory!” , depicting a bearded, armoured bogatyr holding a

91 “Bogatyr” in Russopedia” Russian Times [Accessed 23/06/19 https://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian origin/bogatyr/ ] & James Bailey, Tatyana Ivanova, An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998) 92 George Lee Stamper Jr, “The Sikorsky S-16 and Russian Aviation during the Great War,” War in History (2000), 7, pp. 66-68 93 Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power , pp. 50-51

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Figure 4.1: Bogatyrs , Viktor Vasetnov,1898. Tretyakov Gallery

Figure 4.1: Bogatyrs , Viktor Vasetnov,1898. Tretyakov 52Gallery

Figure 4.4 An honourable death is better than a dishonourable life- Dimitri of the Don Ivanov, V.

O.Burova -Iskusstvo [USSR]

53 Figure 4.3: Forward, bogatyrs, for the sake of the Motherland ! Iskusstvo , Toidze, Irakly. 1943 [USSR] Nazi stahlhelm , marked out by a swastika and faded eagle insignia. This could be Muromets himself, but equally a generalised representation. Behind him, his horse carries his spear, keeping with the established visual language familiar to Russian audiences. In the bottom right, the dark and blocky shape of a knocked out German panzer establishes the message of the piece: channel your ancestors glory by committing the heroic act of fighting the fascist invader. Soviet propaganda lionised the soldiers of the Red Army, normally as heroes of the Revolution, but the Great Patriotic War would see them directly portrayed as bogatyrs , to inspire heroism in the troops and respect for the state amongst civilians. Irakly Toidze’s 1943 poster “Forward, bogatyrs, for the sake of the Motherland !” depicts a Red Army soldier brandishing his PPSHE submachinegun defiantly, looking back towards his comrades. Behind him stands a bogatyr clad in all red, similarly raising his sword skywards. The caption clearly enshrines the Red Army as modern incarnations of bogatyrs , as well as implying that the troops, and thus the state, had the weight and legitimacy behind them. The mass of SVT-40 rifles and the barrel of a tank gun firing reflect the power and armament of the Red Army, and consists of what Sheila Fitzpatrick has described as “socialist realism,” in so far that the mass of weapons were a representation of how things should be , and not necessarily as they are. Till mid-1944, Soviet troops were not well equipped and would be fortunate to have enough ancient Mosin-Nagant rifles to share between two, yet alone tank support for every infantry unit. Another poster from Ivanov and Burova, “ An honourable death is better than a dishonourable life, ” similarly shows Soviet infantry charging westwards across the Don river, while in the background, the 14 th Century cavalry of Dimitri Donskoy, the Grand Prince of Moscow, charges in unison. The design of the poster again directly conflates the Red Army with military heroes from the past. The title is a quote from Dimitri, who was likely chosen as the Soviets were then fighting the Wehrmacht in the vicinity of the Don river, which is where the Grand Prince won a great victory against the Tatars in the 1380 battle of Kulikovo, gaining his epitaph Donskoy: “of the Don.”94 The Red Army are presented as similar architects of victory. Artist Petr Tarasovich Malcev produced the classic “ Red Army man, be worthy of the heroic glory of your people!” which depicts two trios of Russians: the first, a Soviet Airman, a tanker and an infantryman armed with a PTRS anti-tank rifle, walk in front of the famous trio of bogatyrs depicted in Vasetnov’s painting. The message is very clear cut, leaving the audience in no doubt as to the implied continuity between ancient Russian culture and the Soviet Union’s modern war. Some visual techniques in historical posters were used by different nations independently of one another. In B. Govorkov’s “Strong heroes-warriors of our land” , a Red Army tank commander’s shadow forms the distinctive outline of a bogatyr . This direct depiction of modern soldiers as descendants of past military ethno-nationalist figures was also deployed by the Nazis in Occupied France. A recruitment poster for the Legions Volunteers Francais (LVF), a collaborationist organisation recruiting Frenchmen to fight in Russia, depicts an armoured Crusader calling for La Grand Croisade against Bolshevism. The shadow of the crusader is clearly a German soldier; the distinctive stahlhelm and shouldered rifle would be immediately recognisable to the audience. As the war dragged on, particularly as victory became defeat after 1943, medieval references disappeared from German posters. Instead posters focused on recruitment through realistic images of German soldiers, which citizens in

94 Isaac Asimov, Asimov’s Chronology of the World (New York: HarperCollins, 1989), p. 186

54 the harsh reality of the late war were more inclined to relate to than fantastical images of Knights.

Figure 4.5: Red Army man, be worthy of the heroic glory of your people! Malcev, P. T. 1943. YPL [USSR]

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Figure 4.6: Strong heroes-Warriors of our land. Govorkov, B.1941. 600 Plakatov 250-1 [USSR] Figure 4.7: The Great Crusade- Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism . Unknown, Paris. LVF, 194 2. Bibliotheques Specialsees [Vichy 56 France]

Figure 4.8: Together , Little, W. 1941, IWM PST 15795 [UK] Figure 4.9: Pax Brittanica , Bertoletti, V. G. Rome, Cronache No. 19, 1943. IWM 57 PST 5761 [Italy]

Although they produced less historical posters than their continental counterparts, two posters illustrate how the British portrayed themselves in posters, and how they were depicted by the Axis. William Little’s “ Together” is a 1941 poster which shows the diverse troops of the British Empire marching together under the Union Flag. The inclusion of men from the White Dominions, a turban clad Indian, and a black soldier, present a subtle indicator of a rejection of Nazi racism. Putting aside the fair and equal treatment of colonial subjects in 1939, this is the message the British Government aimed to convey, although not practice. Conversely, an Italian poster presents the best example of the insulting anti-British stereotype that was very common in Axis propaganda, depicting the British as “globe-consuming, plutocratic John Bulls.”95 V. G. Bertoletti’s Pax Britannica expresses this view perfectly. The British produced a wide range of propaganda, mainly instructing the public on domestic issues, but did not produce anywhere near the same quantity of historical posters, as they appealed to more modern themes that presented superior technology as the path to victory. The Nazi use of historical posters was the most insidious, and the material they produced in Norway and Denmark shows how they used ethno-nationalist identities to try to persuade the population. They appealed to representations of Viking culture, and the SS in particular deployed images from Norse mythology. “ For Denmark against Bolshevism” is the classic format of Nazi recruitment posters in the occupied territories, showing a historical figure from a nations past side by side with a German soldier. In this case, a representation of a Danish Viking holding a classical round shield with a sword at his belt, stands adjacent to a SS trooper in all black, wielding the iconic MP40 submachinegun. This clearly frames the Nazi conflict with the Soviets as one to defend Danish national culture and heritage. Similarly, O Ang, Norwegian poster designer for the German Occupation, “ Northmen Fight for Norway!” shows an SS soldier and a Viking both in profile, looking to the right of the frame. As in Soviet posters, the right and left of the frame represent east and west, so the enemy is thus presented as coming from the right because the Soviets were to the east. The ethno-nationalist representation in this poster wears chain mail and a conical steel helmet, delineating him as a Viking or medieval warrior. The implicit message is clear; be like your ancestors and fight with us, for we are on the same side. The Nazis produced several variants of these posters.96 The SS further produced posters referencing Norse mythology that are a profound coupling of historical and mythical motifs with modern ideology. Harald Damsleth, the artist who produced Nazi poster in Norway, produced Figure 4.12, for SS-Day 1943, which shows a stylised SS trooper standing on a Viking longship. The chainmail clad soldier carries a short sword and a shield marked with a circular swastika. This clearly places SS- Troopers as a modern incarnation of Viking raiders, suggesting both excitement, glory and the protection of ones homeland. Only in Scandinavia did the Nazis so wholeheartedly place themselves within mythology and national history. One example of the Nazi infatuation with Norse culture is their use of the swastika, an ancient symbol that once signified the victory of light over darkness. The swastika has a long history in Norse and Germanic culture, predating runes. 97 The swastika symbolised victory against evil, and in ancient Norse

95 Aulich, War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication , p. 12 96 See examples Unknown, Against Bolshevism- Join the Frikorps Denmark 1944, Kongelige Bibliotek, DH005697 & Bogartingtet 1943- Norwegian Nazis 97 Edward O.G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (New York: Holt, Rheinhart and Winston, 1964), p. 84. & Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects (Melbourne: Boydell Press, 2006), p. 100 58

Figure 4.10: For Denmark v Bolshevism , Unknown, 1943. Konegelige Bibliotek DH004198 [DEN] Figure 4.11: Nordmenn kjemp for Norge . O Ang. 1942. BND Plak 003- 59 025-034 [NOR] culture, was associated with solar and celestial powers, interchangeable with the sun wheel symbol and Thor’s hammer Mjolnir .98 The dream of the Greater Germanic Reich would be realised by creating a single culture based on the shared cultural history of the Germanic peoples, promoted by the ethnic nationalism of the völkisch movement and perpetuated by propaganda showing German and Norse culture as synonymous. Stephanie Von Schnurbein has shown that the völkisch movement was an amalgamation of nationalism, cultural pessimism, racism, ant-Semitism, anti-materialism and “a general enthusiasm for everything that was perceived as ‘Germanic’ or ‘Nordic,’ which aimed to create a ‘pure’ German traditional culture devoid of foreign influence. 99 One poster took this cultural fusion even further. Damsleth’s “Our Honour is Allegiance” depicts a number of pagan and modern scenes, played out on a Nordic swastika. At the bottom an SS man battles a (presumably Soviet) dragon, to defend his wife and three young children above him, symbolising the German defence of Europe from Communism. On the right side a kneeling man presents a column of soldiers with a bale of hay, representing the implicit support of Norway for the German war effort. In the lower left, a child chases or hunts a stag accompanied by a hound, perhaps cultivating traditional ideas of masculinity and a pastoral idyll. In the middle left, a traditional Viking longship heads out to sea, filled with helmeted and armed soldiers. This situates the tradition of Norse maritime culture within the context of Nazi military action and aims. In the top of the swastika the world tree, Yggdrasil, rises into the sky supporting the nine worlds of Norse myth; from the icy seas of Hel at the roots, to our world, Midgard, up to the elven realms of Alfheim and the highest world, residence of the Gods and heroes slain in battle; Asgard. Yggdrasil was highly symbolic and important to Norse mythology, supporting all life on its branches and serving as the meeting place of the gods and other mythical beings. The chief of the Norse Gods, the Allfather Odin, had crafted his magical spear Gungnir from it, and hung himself from its branches for nine days in exchange for magical knowledge and the gift of poetry, which he stole and brought to mankind. 100 In the centre there is a depiction of Odin, recognisable as a fierce old man with one eye, his ravens Hugin and Munin (Thought and Memory) visible in the top of the tree, as well as an eagle, which could be another incarnation of the God. Odin is behind a child who holds a sword and spade, suggesting the importance of military service or agricultural labour to the Germans. Odin here appears as a paternalistic God, one who could be adapted with relative ease to Christianity. Tony Paterson revealed that the Nazis even reinvented Father Christmas as an incarnation of Odin, who in legend had rode the earth on a white stallion, announcing the coming of the winter solstice. Paterson reports that the Cologne's National Socialism Documentation Centre’s exhibition even contained posters which showed “the ‘Christmas or Solstice man’ as a hippie-like individual on a white charger sporting a thick grey beard, slouch hat and a sack full of gifts.”101 As usual, the Nazis had an eye for style; the motif of the lone God wandering the earth on a white horse also formed J.R.R. Tolkien’s

98 MacLeod and Mees, Runic Amulets and Magic Objects p. 9 & Hilda R. Ellis-Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (London: Penguin Books, 1964), p. 83 99 Stephanie Von Schnurbein, “Tales of reconstruction. Intertwining Germanic neo-Paganism and Old Norse scholarship.” Critical Research on Religion , (August 2015), Vol. 3 (2), p. 150 100 Lawrence Eson, “Odin and Merlin: Threefold Death and the World Tree,” Western Folklore , Vol. 69, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 96-98 101 Tony Paterson, “How the Nazis stole Christmas,” The Independent, (21 December 2009)

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Figure 4.12 -SS-Dagen-1943, Harald-Damsleth, 1943. [NOR] 61 Figure 4.13: Our Honour is Allegiance. Harald-Damsleth, 1941-44 [NOR] influence for the wizard Gandalf the Grey. Samuel Koehne has shown that Nazi neo- paganism viewed Christianity and Germanic paganism as part of a single spectrum, one that could be ‘Aryanised’, while fusing elements of Christianity with the constructed German paganism, equating Jesus Christ to Norse gods such as Odin or Baldur. 102 Clearly, Nazi propagandists went to great lengths to situate themselves within Nordic culture, or to depict it as part of a wider ‘Germanic’ culture. As in most Nazi historical posters, the inclusion of historical figures and national representations was intended to convince audiences that the Nazis were sincere defenders of national culture and freedom, and so people in lands they occupied should join them. We come finally to historical posters depicting real, historical individuals. The British produced the least posters of this type, but they were well aware of the trend in the Soviet Union thanks to the transfer of posters between the two. British propaganda tended to present modern troops and workers as the heroes, rather than relying on the past. Despite this, in 1943 London Transport produced a series of four posters titled Our Heritage, showing famous figures from British history, to be displayed on the London Underground. The four men chosen were famous military or political figures: Sir Francis Drake, the Elizabethan-era sea explorer and privateer who was the first Englishman to sail around the world, and “singed the King of Spain’s beard” in 1587 by burning his fleet at Cadiz, delaying the Spanish Armada by a year; Lord Horatio Nelson, the Napoleonic era Admiral, martyr-hero of decisive naval Battle of Trafalgar in 1805; and William Pitt the Younger, who was Britain’s prime minister during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The final figure no doubt had a vested interest in appearing among such rarefied company; the formidable Winston Churchill. Although these posters have little in the way of persuasive techniques, they clearly showcase past British victories and link them to the current conflict, personified in the inclusion of Churchill. As discussed above, the majority of Nazi-produced historical posters appeared in the Occupied Territories, but C. Horn’s Germany’s Saviour reveals the nature of such posters intended for German consumption. The poster shows Hitler shaking hands with Otto Von Bismarck, the German “Iron Chancellor” in the late nineteenth century, a highly respected figure, while the ghost of Frederick the Great, the militarily successful King of Prussia in the eighteenth century looks on. This format was not subtle, and framed Hitler and the Nazis as the natural successors of German nationalism, Prussian militarism and a German dominated Europe. In the Occupied Netherlands, the Nazis produced some of their most striking, and perplexing propaganda. In the now familiar format of the Waffen-SS recruiting poster, the Nazis combined images of Dutch national heroes with depictions of German troops, with captions instructing the audience that true patriotism involves fighting the enemies of Germany. Two posters by the unknown artist ‘S’ depict the Dutch Naval hero Admiral Michiel de Ruyter and the leader of the South African Republic during the Boer Wars, Paul Kruger. Show yourself as a true Nederlander- fight the Bolsheviks , shows De Ruyter and several Dutch galleons in the background, overlooking a team of Waffen-SS setting up a gun position. As discussed in Chapter One, this poster is epistemically defective because it erroneously links Dutch patriotism, symbolised by De Ruyter, to the Nazi war against the

102 Samuel Koehne, “Where the National Socialists a ‘Volkisch’ party? Paganism, Christianity and the Nazi Christmas,” Central European History , Vol. 47, No. 4, (December 2014), p.761

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Figure 4.14: Our Heritage, Francis Drake . Rob Figure 4.15: Our heritage, Lord Nelson . Rob Sargent A ustin, 1943, London Transport, IWM Sargent Austin, 1943, London Transport IWM PST 8525 [UK] 8514 [UK]

Figure 4.16: Our Heritage, William Pitt . Rob Sargent Austin, 1943, London Transport, IWM

PST 8153 [UK] Figure 4.17: Germany’s Saviour , Horn, C. NSDAP C.1940 IPG

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64 Figure 4.19: Alles sal reg kom!. Fight against Bolshevism in the Waffen SS . S, Figure 4.18: Show yourself as a true Dutchman- fight the Bolsheviks . S, Waffen-SS , 1943. GVN AG -00348A [NL] Waffen-SS , 1942. GVN AG-00346 [NL] Soviets, between which there is no discernible connection. Here we see how the Nazis used history as a tool of manipulation; skimming over the details so they could represent national figures as natural supporters. It would have made more sense if De Ruyter was included in a poster directed against the British, since his naval victories were against them in the Anglo- Dutch Wars (1652-1674). De Ruyter defeated the English most famously in his daring Raid on the Medway in June 1667, which saw the Dutch fleet sail up the Thames to the Royal Navy harbour at Chatham Reach and burnt four major warships at dock, seizing the flagship Royal Charles for good measure. 103 Similarly, the other historical figure was also famed for his anti-British credentials: Paul Kruger. “ Alles sal reg kom! ”, which roughly translates to ‘everything will be fine,’ was a famous phrase of Kruger’s, who fought the British in South Africa in the First and Second Boer Wars as leader of the South African Republic, known by the British as the Transvaal. In both these cases, the Nazis have referenced Dutch figures who fought the British, encouraging the audience to join the Waffen-SS . Interestingly, there is no ideological imperative in these posters specifically referring to the British or Soviets, instead, just the impetus to fight for one’s country, presented here as synonymous with fighting for Germany. The Soviets produced more posters referencing historical individuals than Nazi Germany or the British Empire, creating many posters depicting Russian victories in the past. The Soviet adoption of historical figures seems to contradict their Marxist outlook, which denies the agency of individuals in history and would consider many figures agents of bourgeois oppression. Platt and Brandenberger argue that the turn to historical figures away from famed Soviet heroes was a result of the ‘Soviet Olympus’ of heroes being decimated by the Great Terror. Starting in 1936, Stalin’s purges were a bloodletting that resulted in a dearth of recognisable public figures who were still politically acceptable by the late 1930s, forcing propagandists to use historical figures. Since these figures were far more recognisable to the Russian people than the colourless Bolshevik heroes who survived the purges, and unlikely to be revealed as revisionist, Trotskyists or fascist spies, this led “to an increasing reliance on pre-revolutionary Russian reputations in Soviet Propaganda.”104 Iskusstvo produced posters referencing famous military leaders such as Minin, Suvorov and Kutsusov, and almost every architect of Russian victory since Nevsky’s day. These posters are all largely structurally identical, so I have refrained from repetition by discussing the most salient examples. I have selected three examples to demonstrate how the Soviets used historical individuals from different time periods. The first is Ivanov’s “ Let Us Inspire You in This War! Our Cause is Just: Fight to the Death!” , showing Red Army troops before a larger than life Alexander Nevsky, leader of the Kievan Rus who defeated the German Northern Crusade in 1242. He gained his name from a famous victory on the banks of the Neva in 1240. 105 In both the past and present shown in this poster, a German invasion from the west is the threat, which only heightens the posters message that service in the Red Army is part of a patriotic tradition. Alexander Nevsky was the kynaz or Prince of Novgorod from 1236-56, and later Grand Prince of Vladimir until his death in 1263. He was a famed soldier, and as Prince the military leader of the Republic of Novgorod within the Kievan Rus, the medieval precursor to modern

103 Andrew Lambert, Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict that Made the Modern World (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2018), p. 192 104 Platt and Brandenberger, Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature As Stalinist Propaganda, # p. 11 105 Richard Hellie, “Alexander Nevskii’s April 5, 1242 Battle on the Ice.”, p. 284

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Figure 4.21: We’re Suvorov’s Descendants, Chapayev’s Children. Iskusstvo , Kukryniksy, 1941. IWM PST 4708 [USSR]

Figure 4.20: Let Inspire You in This war! Ivanov, V. 1941, 600 Plakatov #288-1 [USSR]

66

Russia. He defeated Teutonic attempts to conquer and invade Russia in 1240 and 1242. The association of the legend of the 1242 defeat of the German Crusade and Nevsky’s personal involvement ensure that he is a common figure in Soviet posters. Nevsky not only appears in posters alone, but also often part of a group of historic figures, representing the heroic Medieval origins of modern Russia. His conical steel helmet is instantly recognisable and became a symbol of the bogatyrs . Posters also appealed to more recent heroes, especially Russian generals during the Napoleonic Wars. The Kukryniksy’s “ We’re Suvorov’s Descendants, Chapayev’s Children” presents the Second World as the latest in a long line of Russian conflicts, all of which were victories. A line of Red Army troopers advance watched over by their ancestors: Nevsky on the left, the famous and talented Napoleonic Era general Alexander Suvorov in the centre, and on the right Vasily Chapayev, a celebrated Red Army commander in the Russian Civil War. Suvorov was, considered one of the best military commanders in history, while Chapeyev was a widely known hero of the Soviet Union, who died in 1919 fighting in the Civil War and had been subsequently immortalised by propaganda in the 1920s. 106 This poster clearly represents the Second World War as another inevitable Russian victory, as established by the rule of history. Historical individuals were used to remind the audience of past victories and reinforce to viewers that the state was the inheritor of national history. The final poster Is A.C. Vasiliev’s iconic “Under the Banner of Lenin- To Complete Victory!” , produced in 1944, this poster is emblematic of many hundreds of similar designs that call on the image of the revolutionary leader. Lenin for many remained an inspiring figure in the 1940s, not least because his words were doctrine in the Soviet Union. Soviet propaganda constructed a new pseudo-environment, in which Socialism supplanted Orthodoxy as the moral order, Communism replaced heaven, and “Lenin replaced God as the all-knowing provider.” 107 This striking poster has Lenin’s iconic profile looking westwards, while in the foreground a tank and infantry advance. This poster simultaneously references the Revolution of 1917, Soviet victory in the Russian Civil War and the vast power of the Soviet Union, by 1944 steadily bulldozing its way towards Berlin. Historical individuals, heroes and ethno-nationalist identities were used by the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and the British Empire in similar ways, be it to remind their citizens of past victories, or encourage them into patriotic action. Propagandists used history and individuals that they knew would be recognised by audiences and could be manipulated into providing implicit justification for the war. National heroes were roped into the service of the nation, in an attempt to persuade Britons, Germans and Russians into giving their all to the war effort.

106 Peter Paret, Gordon A. Craig & Felix Gilbert, Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1986), p. 356 107 Anna Bryan, “Soviet Propaganda Posters,” Wright Museum of Art, Beloit College. p. 19 67

Figure 4. 22: Under the Banner of Lenin – To Complete Victory ! Vasiliev, A. C. Moscow Iskusstvo , 1944. DEM SP 187 [USSR] 68

Conclusion In this thesis, I have shown how historical imagery was used in the posters of multiple different European countries during the Second World War. In political artworks produced by the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, we have seen the same motifs depicting national history in each country. Calling on history to justify the War, propagandists sought to build support by conflating the mythologised national past with the modern conflict. A diverse range of time periods, topics and individuals were utilised, but structural similarities existed between different countries propaganda despite their political differences. Despite the national variation in details and specifics of the history used, there were three standard forms of historical poster; past battles and wars, historical individuals, and ethno-nationalist identities. Posters called on past battles, noting parallels between dates - such as the Battle on the Ice in 1242 and the Siege of Stalingrad in 1942-3, or German defeat in 1918 and the continued struggle 25 years later in 1943 - as well as evoking more generalised concepts like crusading. All three major powers referenced military conflicts ranging from pre-modern battles, to European wars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the more recent trauma of the First World War. Though thematically similar, the distinction between historical figures and ethno-nationalist identities is that historical figures were real individuals who existed; such as Admiral Michiel De Ruyter, Lord Nelson, Emperor Barbarossa and Vladimir Lenin. Ethno-Nationalist identities on the other hand, are the broader mythological figures from folklore or national legend who symbolised the heroism or other aspects of a country’s identity. These identities were widely used, resulting in posters employing Russian Bogatyrs, Scandinavian Vikings, Dutch sailors, Crusaders and even idealised British imperialists. Nations used these kind of identities because they were both visually recognisable and culturally relevant to their audiences. The association of these national symbols with the modern war effort served to subliminally cement continuity between the state and the communally imagined national past. I have discussed in Chapter One and Chapter Three the effect of the Great War on both the development of propaganda – i.e. audience reactions to posters - and received ideas about warfare. I do not need to elaborate here on the alienating effect of four years of mechanised total war on the psyche of the European population, but it is abundantly clear that the first war established the requisite material conditions for the second. The ‘Great War’ left a psychological scar on the British population, and set Germany down the path of Nazi domination. Equally important is the downfall of Tsarist Russia and Lenin’s successful 1917 revolution and the subsequent creation of the Soviet Union. Unique circumstances since 1914 had led these nations down radically different paths, but would see them all utilise historical motifs and almost identical propaganda techniques when they went to war again. It is vital to note that the ‘atrocities’ propaganda perpetuated by the Allies in the First World War affected both Britain, America and Germany profoundly. In the West this entailed, widespread cynicism regarding duplicitous propaganda which after 1918 required a degree of moderation and sensitivity to public outcry that persisted till 1945. This is why many British posters appear to treat their perspective audiences as children in order to avoid the appearance of trying to mislead the public with questionable stories or highly emotive imagery. In Germany, Hitler and Goebbels took the opposite lesson from the first war: that propaganda is necessary for victory, and that the only way Germany could defeat its opponents was through the total domination of its population. This is important because it highlights the key finding of this thesis: That history was used by Britain, Russia and Germany during the Second 69

World War as a tool of propaganda in almost identical ways, despite their numerous differences. Each nation used historical events and individuals, deploying them in similar formats but crucially, each imparting their own ideological twist that often had little to do with the history in question. What did Nevsky care about Soviet Nationalism? Or De Ruyter about defeating Communism? Vikings about German national security? As I have made clear, these posters and their creators took a rather nonchalant view on historical accuracy, as it was often the evocation of national figures and symbolism that served in posters to conflate the “imagined community” of the past with the present. 108 British posters present themselves as arbiters of peace, democracy and Christian brotherly love, while in reality they were rightfully seen in Europe as a mercurial gang of piratical imperialists, who were more than happy to starve India, sink the French fleet at harbour and carpet bomb large swathes of the continent. The Germans equally employed historical individuals or ethno-nationalist identities in the ‘Germanic’ Occupied Territories that linked past struggles for independence or national glory to the modern fascist crusade against Communism. The Soviet Russians were equally fast and loose with the facts. Their posters (and state backed films!) ignored the fact that Nevsky was a client of the Mongol Golden Horde, that many of their early-modern Generals were servants of a regime founded on the oppression of common Russians, and perhaps, most fittingly, forget that Lenin himself made peace with Imperial Germany at the Treaty of Brest- Litovsk in 1918. This technique of twinning historical imagery with official state pronouncements allows the state to frame itself as the inheritor and champion of the national past. This use of inapt metaphor, - conflating historical figures with modern political stances they could not and possibly would not endorse - is a central feature to this type of propaganda. As Sheryl Tuttle Ross (2002) has argued and I have demonstrated, problematising the relationship between historical imagery and the message of a poster serves to decode the persuasive or duplicitous elements of these posters. The aim of this study was to fill the gap in historiography regarding historical posters of the European powers of the Second World War. By taking a comparative approach, it has demonstrated the key features of these posters and the common themes used aross different countries. In this, it has succeeded in showing how history was employed in posters as a tool of national identity. This was done through spuriously linking historical figures to the modern conflict, citing victory in battles and wars of the past, and evoking ‘national’ values in the form of mythological or folkloric figures, exhorting the modern audience to fight or assist the war effort. Comparison between the United Kingdom, Russia, Germany and Occupied Europe’s posters has never been attempted. This thesis includes 56 historical posters from Europe, grouping them thematically and comparing examples from different countries to demonstrate the consistencies in the use of the past in propaganda. This is the first study to show that historical posters were a trans-European phenomenon, discuss the history they called upon, and explains how they were intended to persuade. I have shown how history can become a potent weapon for unscrupulous governments, willing to distort truth to manipulate their people. This thesis demonstrates the importance of knowing ones history, as it is all too easy for the past to become a tool of persuasion in the hands of a propaganda artist.

108 See Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (1983), in which he suggests nations are relatively constructs, created by socio-material forces. 70

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Posters- 56 Total, based on a sample of c. 150. Abbreviations: • IWM= Imperial War Museum (UK, Elephant and Castle) • IPG= International Poster Gallery [ https://www.internationalposter.com/ ] • TNA= The National Archives (UK, Kew) • BND= Bundesarchiv (Germany, Berlin)- ‘Plak’ (poster)- 1939-1945- approx. 2,265 individual posters • GVN= Geheugen van Nederland- Memory of the Netherlands- Koninklijke Bibliotheek.- All Dutch posters- total of c.5000 (NL) • Kongelige Bibliotek- Denmark National Library • DEM SP= Galina L. Demosfenova, Sovetskie plakatisty (Moscow: Ikkustvo, 1985) • GRIG SP= Maria Lafont, Soviet Posters: The Sergio Grigorian Collection (London: Prestel Publishing, 2008) total posters= 166 • 600 Plakatov= Aleksandr Snopkov, Pavel Snopkov, Aleksandr Škljaruk, 600 Plakatov (Moskva, 2004) 2.1 Unknown , Join the Crusade: National Savings Certificates . 1940-45 IWM PST 15624 2.2 Werner von Axster-Heudtlass,. Germany’s European Broadcast . 1943. BND Plak 003- 002-044 2.3 Richter, Max, E. Pomeranian District Rally of the NSDAP , Stettin: NSDAP 1938. IWM PST 3171 2.4 Vladimir Ivanov. O Burova , He who comes with the sword shall die by the sword. 1242- 1942. 1942 IPG 75

2.5 O Ang. Europe defends its 3000-year-old culture against Bolshevism . 1942/44. BND Plak 003-028-106 2.6 Sarkisyan, P. Let’s Kill the Hydra! TASS Window 1211, 5 May 1945. IWM PST 5295 2.7 Bacon, Cyril W. England Expects National Service , 1939, IWM PST 13959 [UK] 2.8 Unknown, Narva 1219, and the symbol of 1944. Kongelige Bibliotek DH005698 2.9 Aleksandr Danilichev. Liberators of Pskov (TASS Window #1028), 1944 IPP 2.10 Galba, Vladimir. A Meeting Between the Ancestor and the Descendant , 1943 IPG 2.11 Damsleth, Harald. Alarm! Sign up as a front fighter. SS-Regiment Norwegen, March 1943. BND Plak 003-025-039 2.12 Sokolov-Skalia, Pavel. Forebears and Offspring (TASS Window #996-997), 1944 IPG 3.1 Unknown, Seafaring is Necessary! Reichsbund Deutscher Seegeltung , 1939. BND Plak 003-008-021 [NG] 3.2 Remaco, A. Our ancestors…went out! They sailed… Consultancy for Labour Abroad , 1944. GVN AF-00063 [NL] 3.3 Unknown, With Mussert, Love Sea. NSB, 1942. GVN AE-00155 [NL] 3.4 Unknown, Always the same enemy! Fight with us! 1673-1943. Kriegsmarine, 1943. GVN AF-00234 [NL] 3.5 Unknown, Fight with us! 1943. GVN AF-00575 [NL] 3.6 O Ang . Join the Waffen-SS Norse Legion to fight with friends against Bolshevism! Waffen-SS, June 1942. BND Plak 003-025-037 [Nor] 3.7 Unknown, DNSAP Meeting 5 Landsstævne Slagelse, 11-12 Juni , 1938. Design Museum Denmark (DMD) P-1000: RF2622 [Den] 3.8 Ivanov, V. & Burova, O. May the courageous example of great predecessors inspire you in this war. J. Stalin. 1812- Glory, Honour, Remembrance to Heroic Deeds of Valour! IWM PST 0183 3.9 Landres, Napoleon was freezing. Let’s heat things up for Hitler! 1941 . Iskusstvo, 1941. Maria Lafont, Soviet Posters: The Sergio Grigorian Collection (London: Prestel Publishing, 2008) .P 88 3.10 Kukryniksy, Napoleon was defeated. The same will happen with the arrogant Hitler! 1941, IWM 3.11 Dolgorukov, N. A. So it was...so it will be! 1941- Yeltsin Pres Lib 3.12 Kukryniksy, We fought the enemy with lances. We fought the enemy with rifles. And now we are fighting him with weapons of steel wherever we catch him . IWM PST 3143 3.13 Mavrins. T. A. Wait! Read the story of how Rus ’fought the war. And as now the case is argued, our people are fighting with the fascist! Moscow, Iskusstvo 1941- in DEM SP 98

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3. 14 Keely, Pat. We Beat Em Before. We will beat ‘em again , 1939-45, TNA (The National Archives UK) INF 3-135 3.15 Keely, Pat. We Beat ‘Em Before. We Will Beat Them Again. 1939-45. TNA INF 3-136 3.16 Unknown, We Beat ‘Em Before. We Will Beat ‘Em Again! c.1940, TNA INF 3-140 3.17 Unknown, The old hatred-the old goal! NSDAP ‘Slogan of the week’ No. 36, 5- 11.9.1939. BND Plak 003-009-139 3.18 Koekkoek M.A Zn., C. 1918 is not 1943 . 1943. GVN AG-00586 3.19 Unknown, 1943 is not 1918 . 1943. GVN AG-00175 3.20 Unknown, Atlantic Wall. 1943 is not 1918 . 1943. GVN AG-00238 3.21 Unknown, Under the Banner of Lenin and Stalin, Forward to Victory! 1917-1942 YPL 3.22 Solovyev, M. 1917-1945 The 28 th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution! (TASS Window #1320-1321), 1945 IPG 4.1 Viktor Vasetnov Bogatyrs (1898) Tretyakov Gallery 4.2 Shmarinov, D. A. In the heroic deeds of grandchildren, I see grandfather’s glory! Moscow Iskusstvo, 1943. Demo SP 158 [USSR] 4.3 Toidze, Irakly. Forward, bogatyrs, for the sake of the Motherland ! Iskusstvo, 1943 [USSR]- source? 4.4 Ivanov, V. O.Burova An honourable death is better than a dishonourable life- Dimitri of the Don [USSR] 4.5 Malcev, P. T. Red Army man, be worthy of the heroic glory of your people! 1943 [USSR]- Source? 4.6 Govorkov, B. Strong heroes-warriors of our land. 1941. 600 Plakatov 250-1 [USSR] 4.7 Unknown, The Great Crusade- Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism. Paris- The LVF, 1942. Bibliotheques Specialsees [Fr] 4.8 Little, W. Together , 1941, IWM PST 15795 [UK] 4.9 Bertoletti, V. G. Pax Brittanica , Rome, Cronache No. 19, 1943. IWM PST 5761 [Italy] 4.10 For Denamark v Bolshevism, Konegelige Bibliotek DH004198 [DEN] 4.11 O Ang. Nordmenn kjemp for Norge. 1942. BND Plak 003-025-034 [NOR] 4.12 Harald-Damsleth-SS-Dagen-1943-2-Longship [NOR] 4.13 Harald-Damsleth-Var-Ære-Er-Troskap-Odin- [NOR] 4.14 Our Heritage, Francis Drake, Rob Sargent Austin, 1943, London Transport, IWM 8525 [UK] 4.15 Our heritage, Lord Nelson, by Robert Sargent Austin, 1943, London Transport IWM PST 8514 [UK]

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4.16 Our Heritage, William Pitt, Rob Sargent Austin, 1943, London Transport, IWM PST 8153 [UK] 4.17 Horn, C. Germany’s Saviour , NSDAP C.1940 IPG 4.18 S,Show yourself as a true Nederlander- fight the Bolsheviks [de Ruyter] Waffen-SS, 1943. GVN AG-00348A [NL] 4.19 S, Alles sal reg kom!. Fight against Bolshevism in the Waffen SS. Waffen-SS, 1942. GVN AG-00346 4.20 Ivanov, V. Let Inspire You in This war! 1941, 600 Plakatov #288-1 [USSR] 4.21 Kukryniksy, We’re Suvorov’s Descendants, Chapayev’s Children. Iskusstvo , 1941. IWM PST 4708- new pic in DEM SP [USSR] 4. 22 Vasiliev, A. C. Under the Banner of Lenin – To Complete Victory! Moscow Iskusstvo, 1944. DEM SP 187 [USSR]

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