Never will the empire be destroyed if you are united and loyal Pro-Nazi election poster with the faces of Hitler and Hindenburg

Hans Weidemann was born in Essen, Germany on May 22, 1904. He studied at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf and was a trained painter by profession. He joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and was given party number 97,362. In 1933, Weidemann was appointed as a speaker in the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and while there he became a close associate of Joseph Goebbels. On May 25, 1933 Weidemann traveled to the United States to attend the Chicago World’s Fair as a representative of Germany. He was the first member of the Nazi government to enter the U.S. In June 1935, Weidemann was appointed director of Newsreels to influence the public and spread propaganda. He also directed the propaganda film Festliches Nürnberg which chronicled the Nazi Party rallies in Nuremberg in 1936 and 1937. In April 1938, Weidemann joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) number 293,074. After the war he went into hiding and later through the denazification process and worked as a painter. Hans Weidemann, aged 71 died in November 1975.

Paul von Hindenburg was born on October 2, 1847 in Posen, Prussia (now Poznań, Poland) to an aristocratic family. He joined the Prussian army after spending his childhood and teenage years in cadet school. He fought for Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and the Franco Prussian War in 1870-1871. After the unification of Germany, Hindenburg continued his service in the new German army, retiring in 1911 as a general. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was recalled to serve as commander of the German Eighth Army. He led his forces to victory over Russia on the Eastern Front at the Battles of Tannenburg and Mausaurian, and became a national hero. In recognition for his accomplishments, Hindenburg was promoted to Field Marshal and received command of all German land forces in 1916. After Germany’s defeat in World War I, he was able to maintain his status as a war hero and retired in June 1919. Following the conclusion of World War I, the German November Revolution dissolved the monarchy and established the Weimar Republic. In April 1925, after the death of then president Friedrich Ebert, Hindenburg was elected as the Weimar Republic’s second president. During the 1920s the Nazi party had been gaining popular support. They were bolstered by the German people’s dissatisfaction with the stiff punishments of the Versailles Treaty, and the economic depression that struck in 1929 also exacerbated the people’s disillusionment with the government. When his presidential term expired in 1932, Hindenburg ran for reelection. It was believed he was the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg won the presidency, but the Nazi Party received a majority of the seats in the German parliament, the Reichstag. Unable to form a coalition government without Nazi support, Hindenburg’s chancellor, Franz von Papen, negotiated a deal with Hitler that would allow Hitler to become Chancellor, Papen would be Vice Chancellor, and non-Nazis would fill most other governmental posts. However, Hitler outmaneuvered and manipulated his contemporaries to put himself in a position where he could acquire unlimited political power. On August, 2 1934, Paul von Hindenburg, aged 86, died in Neudeck, Germany (now Ogrodzieniec, Poland).

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

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection