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.
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
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Disney, an American cultural imperialist icon
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Coca-cola, natch
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Pornography
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prostitution
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consumerism
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gin, the most wretched of all alcoholic beverages
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Bananas that were overwhelmingly associated with communist oppression for reasons
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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.
gin, the most wretched of all alcoholic beverages
finally, somebody willing to say it
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
I thought it was totally classy! Heard the places where you can drink it were called palaces!
Gin should never be consumed straight. I love gin but that is not the way.
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.
Dionysus asked me the same once. Out of an abundance of piety I agreed. Never again.
Only reason he's correct about gin is that he's clearly never had 99 Bananas.
Onlt thing I disagree with is that gin is the only good liquor.
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Come to the capitalist West where women have to fuck strangers so they don't starve to death you oppressed commies!
Yes come you oppressed communists and taste the glorious [checks notes] prostitution, cheap liquor, processed food, Disney imperialism???
Damn the Soviet Union was still in black and white in the 80s? When did the West start sharing color technology?
What's on the left side is exploitation and commodification of sex though
Yeah, I think the artist was a mass of fascist brainworms hiding in a skin-suit and this is supposed to depict joyous Eastern Germans rushing to supposed freedom only to be embraced by what a Fascist thinks is "moral degredation" or something. ie, the treat hog west German hedonists have betrayed the purity of the Aryan nation, blah blah blah, the East Germans are rushing from one oppression to the other.
That's the best I can come up with to explain this in light of the artists brainworms.
Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time, including major state investments in their education and training, their full incorporation into the labor force, generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care. But there’s one advantage that has received little attention: Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure. A comparative sociological study of East and West Germans conducted after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women.
Per NY Times: https://archive.is/da9fy
The fash can whine and moan and cry about the evils of communism all they want, but the sex thing is hard data and against it their lies are as helpless as morning fog.
The great cultural victory of turning previously content people into ravenous treat hogs
We're all living in Amerika.
Amerika ist wunderbar.
We're all living in Amerika.
Coca-Cola, Wonderbra.
We're all living in Amerika,
Amerika, Amerika.
We're all living in Amerika.
Coca-Cola, sometimes war.
We're all living in Amerika,
Amerika, Amerika.
Enough with that old dreamy Caspar David Friedrich shit, this ought to be the National Painting of Germany.
no banana 
was an actual anti-GDR talking point.
![[CW Nudity/Sex Capitalist Propaganda] Herbert Smagon, 1989](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/d4cd394b-aa0b-43e8-b018-532d29fd967e.webp){kind=link}