Shatter the enemy of the world! Nazi Party election poster with a man smashing a financial building with a battering ram

Identifier
irn3762
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 1990.333.5
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • German
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

overall: Height: 19.000 inches (48.26 cm) | Width: 13.000 inches (33.02 cm)

Creator(s)

Archival History

The poster was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1990.

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

Scope and Content

Political poster promoting the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler for the German election in Saxony on May 20, 1928. The poster is dominated by the image of a muscular worker demolishing the Saxon parliament building, which bears the label “International High Finance.” Though the theme of a worker destroying a government building was often used utilized by Communist groups, Nazi political groups also employed it to win the votes of the working class. During the 1920s, both Left-and-Right-wing groups in Germany opposed parliamentary rule. The destruction of a building associated with government and finance implied that Nazi leaders would be able to solve the many social problems plaguing Germany at the time. The nation was deep in the throes of the Great Depression, with six million unemployed. This economic distress contributed to a rise in the popularity of the Nazi Party who along with the Communist Party and the Social Democrats, were the most popular political parties in Germany. The Nazis supported economic nationalism and distrusted international capital, preferring domestic production with the elimination of foreign competition.

Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions on access

Conditions Governing Reproduction

No restrictions on use

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

German political poster printed on light brown paper on a white linen backing depicting a giant, shirtless man in black pants held up by a belt with a swastika buckle. He is raising up a vertical, cylindrical, red battering ram decorated with a canted, black swastika in a white circle, as though ready to smash it down on an extravagant columned white building below him. The building’s roof is smashed in and pieces of rubble are flying through the air as spectators look on with their hands raised. On the top right, there are three lines of large, red text in Sütterlin font. At the bottom are two lines of large red text in a block font. The linen backer is creased on the back.

front, bottom left on linen, handwritten, pencil : 16/J front, bottom right on linen, handwritten, pencil : pII 30 front bottom right, handwritten, pencil : 360

Corporate Bodies

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.