Propaganda Posters During World War II

During WWII, Great Britain would create propaganda posters to try to convince ordinary citizens to help the military effort in some way.

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.” –Adolf Hitler. In 1939, life was about to change as everyone knew it. WWII was just beginning and the whole world would be affected. Germany, Italy, Japan, Great Britain, France, and Russia have entered into a long and expensive journey. The Axis Powers and Allies knew what they were getting into, so they decided to come up with a way to get the citizens involved. Men and women played an important role in getting the support the country needed; they became poster designers. The poster designer’s job was to create posters that drew up certain beliefs about the enemies. These men and women became psychological

Back in the 1900’s world war 2 broke out. Germany and britain were fighting against each other, and in 1940 Germany began heavily bombing Great Britain. Every person that lived in Great Britain in some way had to participate in helping with the war whether it be working in the factories, hospitals, or jobs that support the war. Therefore, in order to make the people help the British government employed a variety of persuasive techniques through posters to convince the people to join the war effort.

Propaganda made a great impact on World War II society. Propaganda was used intently during World War II and was particularly important because it allowed the government to control citizen’s thoughts and beliefs about the war. Propaganda is defined as information or ideas that promote a point of view, group, belief, etc. Usually, it is either misleading or biased in order to portray a desired viewpoint for people to believe. In the war, the government utilized propaganda to make citizens believe that the war was worth fighting for, even though that wasn’t the case. They did so by creating propaganda that advocated for unification, domination of the enemy, and war employment opportunities, to name a few. Maus by Art Spiegelman is a graphic novel

This poster is telling men to sign up for the military. The poster allow the men to feel like they are powerful and that they can help win the war. This poster is directly towards fit men. On the poster, it says "There is still a place in the line for YOU!" The poster have a line of men with a board in the middle that says "this space is reserved for a fit man". This means that almost every men can join the military. This encourage the men to join the military and help fight in the war. This poster is significant because it express that any men that are fit are needed to help fight in the war and help protect their country. This poster illustrates that the war (WW1 & 2) is coming near and that men should sign up to fight in the war. This poster

C (Content) - The poster depicts a group of well-dressed German soldiers invading and slaying innocent Australian civilians. In a large, bold font located on the top of the poster asks, "Will you fight now or wait for this." Additionally, this poster was used to motivate young men from Australia to enlist themselves and to fight the German Empire in the Great War.

Therefore, this poster is uses plain folks to relate with the everyday lives of working citizens. This technique is effective because, while workers are taking breaks while on the job they’ll think of the message conveyed on the poster and critique themselves. However, the poster also uses a fear tactic by adding the slogan “EVERY MINUTE COUNTS,” and the picture of a clock behind him; knowing the workers are desperately urging for the war to be over, they will fear wasting any time to take a break. Overall, both of these techniques were used effectively throughout the poster because no factory worker wants to be the cause for a delay in the

Poster artist would used Uncle Sam often more so to persuade people to buy or help in some form. Mocking versions emotionally instilled fear anger or any emotion to cause a reaction of the people and would make them very personal to most everyone. “ This 1942 poster, titled This is the Enemy, circulated in the United States following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Its purpose was to embody the entire Japanese nation as a ruthless and animalistic enemy that needed to be defeated ” (Miles). The poster shows a Japanese man coming out of the shadows with a knife ready to stab a woman who is running away in terror. Every emotion comes to play especially seeing a women in fear causes people to feel empathy because that could be their wife, mother, or sister being attacked. “ In other words, propaganda is used to influence people psychologically in order to alter social perceptions “ (Miles). Racism in that time period was still at a very high point. People still were not comfortable with other races being superior to them. The drawings mocked Japanese by making them have yellow tinted skin, their eyes distinctly narrowed and even their clothing. Also they would include inaccurate features like long sharp nails or sharp teeth to instill fear into the

This propaganda poster is very effective in many ways, including effective use of advertising strategies, superb visual composition, but most of all impactful to the reader, especially if they are pro-Hitler. In this composition you can find evidence of the strategy of assertation. In the caption it says “Will you follow this monster?”, stating that Hitler is in fact, a monster. Not only that, but this also includes name-calling in which you call Hitler a “monster”, Furthermore, the caption also has the strategy of both glittering generalities and simplification. It can be found, again, with calling Hitler a monster, but this time with the added bonus of a skeleton inside showing Hitler’s true nature, and the fireball in his hand burning Molching. As well, the propaganda poster

Even though the German bombing campaign on London did not play a definitive role in influencing the outcome of the war, it had a psychological effect on citizens and was used in British recruiting propaganda posters with the goal of bolstering recruitment numbers (Robert 330). One specific recruitment example can be viewed on a poster created by the United Kingdom Government, Publicity Department, Central Recruiting Depot. As stated on the poster, "It is far better to face the bullets than to be killed at home by a bomb. Join the army at once & help to stop an air raid. God save the King"(Robert 330). Numerous other posters were put into production to encourage potential recruits, ages 18 to 50, to join the Royal Air Force with the promise that by joining the Royal Air Force, the volunteer could not be transferred to the army (Robert 330). For the first time in history it was possible for a soldier to participate and fight in a war without actually seeing

In addition to this, according to Gablik, “The momentum of social change in the modern world has altered not only the nature of art, but also the psychological drives and motivations of those who shape it” (1995, p.15). Authorities manipulate psychological conditions of society through colors, patterns and figures when they create a propaganda art. For instance, they would use important public values in a painting and create an emotional context to draw individual’s opinion to their own direction. A lot of people decided to go war front line as soldiers because of being under the control of these images. Also, in Nazi Germany, The Nazis used a lot of posters, paintings to convince people that the Jews were not a valuable

For my Humanities final I have decided to do a piece of Propaganda art. Whether it is art, will have to remain to be seen… For starters, my chosen image is designed to look like a Wanted poster. The person on it looks like your everyday, stereotypical, young housewife from the 1940s.

The poster targeted audiences, who were healthy young men across Canada because as seen in the poster, aircraft and ammunitions were needed to be put to use by strong men in order to destroy Hitler. All Canadian audiences from French Canadians to new immigrants would have interpreted the poster in the same way as they feared Hitler’s control and to prevent Hitler’s power, the audiences would have to enlist to fight against him. The use of persuasive pictures and words in my propaganda poster influenced feelings and actions, which made it much easier to encourage the citizens to make the sacrifice and contribute to the war. The poster said a declarative statement “Destroy This Mad Beast. Enlist Now” with the unsaid “or else” which indicates that the country will suffer by the Nazi government if men do not enlist. My poster is from the point of view of Canadian artists who worked for the Ministry of Information government towards the issue of Hitler invading many countries, which caused the artist to create the poster in the year of 1940. The artists who worked for the government have access to a wide variety of sources of information from the society and the information given by the government at the time in order to create the poster regarding men to enlist to fight against Hitler. The

Unlike Hitler, the Allies still focused on posters as a means to empower people. For the allies, the image of Hitler, with the hair falling across his forehead and

This was Hitler’s attempt to convince the world that the communist Russians had an unholy alliance with the Jewish community. At the time of the release of this anti-semitic poster, communism had been the biggest threat to the world, making it the evilest form of government known to mankind. The manipulation that Hitler used to sway the morals and beliefs of other people, is known as psychological warfare. Psychological warfare is defined as the use of propaganda, threats, or even other psychological techniques such as persuasive speeches to, intimidate, mislead, demoralize, or otherwise