Another propaganda piece is an artwork created by Herbert Smagon in 1989 titled “The Fall of the Berlin Wall” and it portrays the drastic difference between West and East Germany. Smagon’s controversial work solidifies the piece as propaganda; His service in World War Two had a huge influence on his art, which revolved around Nazi soldiers and graphic war scenes. The piece shows the oppression those in the communist country endured and how the destruction of the wall will bring them back into the light of freedom.

https://medium.com/@catiecooper1414/why-propaganda-changed-how-we-viewed-the-berlin-wall-65be231ce6b5

Imagine not only thinking but unironically painting this piece and thinking it portrayed Western Germany as a good place.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    2 days ago

    CW: Discussion of CSA depicted as anti-communist propaganda by the artist responsible for this painting

    This is almost certainly, like this must be anti-fascist satire. Look at the elements

    • Disney, an American cultural imperialist icon

    • Coca-cola, natch

    • Pornography

    • prostitution

    • consumerism

    • gin, the most wretched of all alcoholic beverages

    • Bananas that were overwhelmingly associated with communist oppression for reasons

    • Axel Springer is a media company that publishes the tabloid rag "Bild". Notably the elder Springer divorced his wife, who was Jewish per the Nuremberg laws, so he could continue working as a Nazi publisher. Some small amount of credit, he apparently did support his wife in some way or another and she did survive the camps. Like every other German who survived the war he was simply helpless to resist the Nazis, he's very sorry, he had no choice, and please ignore that he was a member of a Nazi paramilitary organization. The Red Army Faction bombed the Axel Springer offices in the 70s and the rag is right wing to it's core.

    But then on the other hand the tombstones at the bottom are people who were killed crossing the wall, so who knows?

    Welp, I looked the guy up. CW applies here -

    spoiler

    He's famous for drawing pictures of Red Army soldiers gleefully sexually assaulting and murdering blond haired blue eyed German children. :::

    I have no fucking idea what is going on with this picture. I assume, in light of his politics, this is some kind of "Both sides are bad" fascist wank about a "D*" Western Germany and a lifeless oppressed Eastern Germany.

    Maybe it's "The East Germans thought we were going to rescue them in to a good pure fascist Aryan society but actually we've been overwhelmed by "D*" so West Germany is actually bad"?

    Fuck idk who can understand what Fascists think they're doing.

    • miz [any, any]
      ·
      2 days ago

      gin, the most wretched of all alcoholic beverages

      finally, somebody willing to say it

        • fox [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 days ago

          Gin specifically has a long and torrid history as the Drink That Brings Men Low, with propaganda pieces about the dangers of gin specifically, not alcohol generally. The UK Gin Craze was a full blown moral panic

          • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]
            ·
            2 days ago

            I thought it was totally classy! Heard the places where you can drink it were called palaces!

        • drhead [he/him]
          ·
          2 days ago

          they are... gin by itself just tastes like plant water though

    • SuperNovaCouchGuy2 [any]
      ·
      2 days ago

      Those two prostitutes in the image are likely sex trafficked from eastern europe, part of the massive human rights violation that was the neoliberal plundering of former ussr republics by the west.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]
        ·
        2 days ago

        Dionysus asked me the same once. Out of an abundance of piety I agreed. Never again.