An example of images that have always interested me is propaganda. The complexity of the wide variety of propaganda posters intrigues me due to its many interpretations that come from a range of groups and nations, employing many intricate thoughts, feelings and ideas as well as ideology and policy. This particular image I came across is a classic example of British propaganda during World War 2. It depicts a british fighter plane facing off against a monstrous WW2 german soldier with zoomorphic features, a gargantuan monster with plane wings, alluding to that of a dragon. The monstrous soldier is terrorising a city below as the British fighter plane seemingly moves towards its target. Smoke rises behind the creature alluding to its destruction of other towns in its wake. This poster is very obviously extremely hyperbolic and used by the British media and government of the time to metaphorically depict nazi soldiers as monsters or evil creatures, as a means to instil fear or to incite greater hatred for the nazi threat. Depicting a nazi soldier as a monster highlights the graveness and violence of the war, subsequently dehumanising the nazi soldiers in order. This was typical during the time of ww2, the British excellently used images and media in order to convey a deeply meaningful message, to incite action and progressive or alternative thought.
The poster shows the fear that the British people held for the nazi opposition, how the bombing raids made them feel helpless and defenceless from the massive force that was the nazi’s, especially because of the air raids, it represents the sheer force and violence of the nazi opposition while also depicting the bravery and heroism of British forces, as shown by the British fighter plane facing the large beast. A modern interpretation of this poster would be the issues of extreme propaganda used to manipulate the British public into dehumanising the germans. It represents the ideological changes that undergo when war time begins, and alludes to the political ideology of controlling a nation’s thoughts and feelings, though this example is dated, it still has underlying themes of media control and governmental intervention that are even more present in the modern age.
“the British government decided not to take over the media or suppress editorial freedom, but rather to allow debate and interpretation. However, it would control the flow of information to the media.” – A Guide to British Government Information and Propaganda, 1939-2009
This poster has the underlying ideology of control and manipulation, it depicts the british government using the fear and uncertainty of the war in order to further alienate the british population against nazi soldiers, which at the time would have been seen as a necessary action, a means to destroying a grotesque and thoroughly misguided regime. However such hyperbole used in this poster misrepresents what the average german soldier was, german soldiers were not so dissimilar to british soldiers, both just fighting for their country in order to serve a cause or leader. Only in the case of the Nazis, there was much suppression of the true extent of what the regime was pushing, such as the holocaust and experimental weapons.
“Common sense could not understand that it was possible to exterminate tens and hundreds of thousands of Jews,”
—Yitzhak Zuckerman, a leader of the Jewish resistance in Warsaw
A guide to British government information and Propaganda, 1939-2009 British Online Archives. Available at: https://microform.digital/boa/posts/category/contextual-essays/421/a-guide-to-british-government-information-and-propaganda-1939-2009 (Accessed: 31 March 2024).
A guide to british government information and Propaganda, 1939-2009 (no date) British Online Archives. Available at: https://microform.digital/boa/posts/category/contextual-essays/421/a-guide-to-british-government-information-and-propaganda-1939-2009 (Accessed: 31 March 2024).
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