Everything is due to God's blessing Nazi propaganda poster featuring a religious quote, a swastika, and barley

Identifier
irn3752
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 1990.333.40
Dates
1 Jan 1934 - 31 Dec 1934
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • German
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

overall: Height: 23.750 inches (60.325 cm) | Width: 17.750 inches (45.085 cm)

Archival History

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

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Scope and Content

German poster with an image of barley stalks overlaid on a swastika, and a religious-themed message, “Everything is due to God's blessing”. By 1934, when this poster was distributed, Germany was struggling to cope with the consequences of the Great Depression. Six million Germans were unemployed and struggled to obtain food. Organized religion, specifically the Protestant Church, was one of the main pillars of German society. The country had approximately 45 million Protestant Christians, 22 million Catholic Christians, 500,000 Jews, and 25,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses. The quotation on the poster exemplifies Germany’s religious and cultural values, while the imagery of the growing barley overlaid on the swastika implies the coming abundance the Nazi government would provide. The religious quote combined with the large swastika may also be an attempt to imply that Nazi rule and power is derived from God, which would absolve the party leadership from adhering to any man-made authority. The relationship between the Nazi party and religion was complex. Initially, the Party was not openly hostile to the Protestant and Catholic Churches; however, the Party believed that Christianity and Nazism were ideologically incompatible. In 1933, the Reich Church was established to advocate a form of Nazi Christianity that excluded the Old Testament, which was considered a Jewish document. The Nazi government also signed a Concordat with the Vatican, stating it would recognize the Nazi regime, which would in turn would not interfere in the Catholic Church. However, the Concordat was broken by the Nazis in 1935, with the passage of anti-religious policies, to undermine the church’s influence.

Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions on access

Conditions Governing Reproduction

No restrictions on use

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Poster printed on discolored, tan paper. The poster has a large, black, canted swastika in the center. A golden-colored barley stalk with two thin, angled leaves is growing from the bottom of the poster. The three yellow barley heads growing from the stalk are overlaid on the swastika. The details of the stalk, leaves, and heads are shaded with reddish-brown tones. Above and below the image is large, red and black-colored German text in fraktur-style font. Small, black text is in the lower left corner, and a small logo is in the lower right. The entire image is surrounded by a thin, rectangular, black border. The paper has a white stain along the top edge, near the center.

front, top left corner, handwritten, pencil : 2.0

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.