One location during Stalin's Great Terror, exhumed and propagandised by the SS while they filled their own mass graves nearby. Read it here. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I never fail to be surprised by how sensitive the Nazis were to "atrocity propaganda". That is, they flogged it for all it was worth against the Soviets, but also claimed Jewish complaints about bad treatment before the war were invented. What I'm thinking is that they were aware of the damage it could cause to others and to them if massacres and atrocities were publicised, yet the Allies (West™) always fought shy of using their knowledge of Nazi atrocities (of organised mass murder by the end of 1942) and never fully used it as a propaganda weapon.
I'd seen the same poster in a different setting. It calls on good Germans to fight die jüdische Creuelpropaganda by buying in German (non-Jewish) shops. A good German lady looks on. The photo tells the story of what good Germans should be doing, etc -- addressed ostensibly, therefore, to a German public.
Er, but what's wrong with that analysis?
Why is the message translated into English?
For which public is the photo (and others like it) really intended? I'd say British and particularly American. The keywords are "Jewish atrocity propaganda". There had been false atrocity propaganda during WWI, and the Nazis were cashing in on it by suggesting Jewish claims of mistreatment were bogus. Muddying the waters...
The english part of the picture is indeed surprising ! The fact that it isn't in french too, would aim more at the US then at UK (as after all the french were supposed to be "ze" great military power in the neighborhood)? "What can I do, What can I write, Against the fall of Night". A.E. Housman
