Soviet and Nazi Posters

This book examines the key content and propaganda value of posters in the dictatorships of Stalin’s USSR (1927-53) and Hitler’s Germany (1933-43), using posters as a point of entry for discussing key Soviet and Nazi policies. In so doing, Soviet and Nazi Posters provides a compelling account of the posters utilised by both regimes for the first time. Kees Boterbloem and Lisa Pine employ a comparative approach throughout, analysing commonalities and differences, and inspecting the regimes’ use of posters as propaganda.

Richly illustrated with 50 images, 25 of which are in colour, Soviet and Nazi Posters encourages the development of vital source skills in the pursuit of understanding the complexities of 20th-century European dictatorships. What do these posters yield to the historian? What do they tell us about the regimes and their intentions? Ultimately, they offer a compelling visual point of entry into Nazism and Stalinism, here explored in rewarding detail.

Boterbloem and Pine convincingly make the case that the use of posters as a medium of propaganda by Stalin and Hitler was advanced at the time and far-reaching. The poster campaigns were very powerful in terms of their impact on their populations and point to how the regimes could influence people outside their homes and in public places to support the regimes and their policies. The book looks at specific posters to discuss key regime policies associated with them, offering us new insights into the nature of these authoritarian governments and the way in which they addressed their populations.