The Jewish Plot Against Europe Poster of John Bull and Stalin joining the Jewish conspiracy
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 46.375 inches (117.793 cm) | Width: 35.000 inches (88.9 cm)
Creator(s)
- Abepy (Artist)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
- Filips van den Elzaslaan (Printer)
- Jan Acke (Publisher)
Biographical History
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
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
Nazi propaganda poster with the floating head of a sinister, caricatured Jew as the puppet master for international Jewry, watching two cartoonlike figures, John Bull, for England, and Stalin for the Soviet Union, shaking hands over a map of Europe. In June 1941, Nazi Germany launched a surprise attack on their ally, the Soviet Union. This broke the pact entered with the Soviets in 1939, which Hitler saw as a temporary measure to aid the invasion of Poland. Since the 1920s, Hitler had denounced the Soviet Union as a stronghold of the Jewish Bolshevik conspiracy which threatened Germany's safety and the plan to attack the USSR was underway in 1940. The German attack led to an alliance between the Soviet Union and Great Britain, as well as the United States, countries already at war with Germany. This poster is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Color offset lithograph poster with an oversize suspended head of a caricatured Jew with a black kippah, straggly beard, and a gloating expression. The head pokes through a cutout in the gradient black background, recalling the puppet master propaganda imagery. Below him, 2 cartoon figures shake hands over a partial blue globe on a gradient yellow background with a blue/gray map of Europe. On the left, standing on a red map of Great Britain, is John Bull, a man in a red and white riding habit and Union Jack vest, symbol of England. He has an elongated arm and oversize hand which joins a similar hand and arm extending from a man on the right, who stands on the Soviet Union. This is a caricature of Joseph Stalin, whose other hand hangs at his side, dripping blood. He wears green army fatigues with a red starred cap and belt. There is large text in French across the top and bottom. The poster is adhered to slightly larger linen backing. See 2016.184.345 for a different version of the poster.
People
- Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953--Caricatures and cartoons.
Subjects
- Nazi propaganda--Posters.
- Antisemitism--Belgium--Posters.
- World War, 1939-1945--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Belgium--History--German occupation, 1940-1945--Posters.
- Propaganda, Anti-Soviet--Posters.
- Propaganda, Anti-British--Posters.
- World War, 1939-1945--Public opinion--Belgium.
- John Bull (Symbolic character)--Posters.
Genre
- Object
- Posters