Nazi Cartoons from Lustige Blätter


Background: These World War II era cartoons are from Lustige Blätter, a weekly German humor magazine. It predated the Nazi takeover, but adjusted quite nicely to the new era. The magazine did not carry caricatures, even friendly ones, of Hitler or other Nazi leaders. There were many caricatures of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin. These issues, all published during World War II, contain a mixture of overt propaganda satirizing enemy countries as well as relatively apolitical jokes and cartoons. There is also a lot of anti-Semitic material. For similar material, see a page on the Fliegende Blätter, another weekly humor magazine.

For those who read German, the whole run (1896-1944) of the most prominent German satirical magazine, Simplicissimus, is available on-line. The site also includes a variety of indexes to the material. This is an extraordinarily valuable resource.

Source: My own collection.