Anti-Nazi drawing published in the PM newspaper
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 20.510 inches (52.095 cm) | Width: 15.510 inches (39.395 cm)
Creator(s)
- William Sharp (Artist)
Biographical History
Leon Schleifer was born in 1900 in Germany. He served in the German army at the end of World War I (1914-1918). He became a political cartoonist and his work was published in the anti-Nazi press. He also specialized in courtroom trial sketches. After the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, Schliefer emigrated to the United States. He changed his name to William Sharp and continued his career as an editorial cartoonist and illustrator. His work was published in the New York Times, Life Magazine, and other publications. He died in 1961, age sixty-one years.
Archival History
The drawing was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1991.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
Scope and Content
These are the sketches and drawings with which I got out of Germany in 1934. They were done from scenes I witnessed myself, and from accounts by reliable witnesses. They show things that were going on in Germany while Hitler was sending his Storm Troopers, "the conquerors of the streets," beating and stomping and shooting men to death, and after he came to power, some of the pictures I brought out in sketch form, afraid to finish them. A newspaper man saw the scene above in 1933, and told me about it. The dress clothes cannot hide the brutality of the headsman and his assistants, who are about to execute a man whose crime was that he objected to tyranny. Se [sic] the sanctimonius pastor at the left! Not all of them were like Pastor Niemoller, who dared to denounce the crime of the Nazis. The prosecutor is reading the death warrant "in the name of the people." What a ghastly joke!
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Two images, recto and verso of sheet; recto: image of two men holding a thin pitiless man who is about to be executed; in middle ground, a fourth man holds an ax; three less important figures are dressed in black tie and tails; on a table in immediate foreground is a blown out candle next to an open book; in background, sky is dark and Third Reich flag is seen waving from top of pole on a building; similar image on verso.
verso, upper right corner, in pencil, "70"
People
- Sharp, William, 1900-1961.
Subjects
- Newspapers--New York (State)--New York--Political cartoons.
- Anti-Nazi movement--United States--Political cartoons.
Genre
- Object
- Art