Curtain Call at the European Theatre

Graphical History Tour steps back eighty years to the aftermath of V-E Day as seen by American editorial cartoonists. (If you're interested in their immediate responses to the Allies' victory in Europe, we visited them on their 75th anniversary.)

"Down Through the Third Reich's Thousand Years" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., May 22, 1945

As the Allies closed in on Berlin, their discovery of Nazi Germany's extermination camps for Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and communists shocked and horrified Western readers. Descriptions in newspapers and on radio of emaciated prisoners and mass graves would soon be followed by graphic photographs in magazines such as Life and Time.

The Russian photojournalism magazine Ogonek had published photos of German atrocities much earlier, but had been dismissed in the West as Soviet propaganda.

"The Same Old Dagger Trick" by Hugh McM. Hutton in Philadelphia Inquirer, May 31, 1945

Hitler came to power capitalizing on the "stabbed in the back" myth created to explain Germany's defeat in World War I. Militarists, nationalists, monarchists, and populists blamed Jews, communists, liberals, and homosexuals for having conspired with the enemy, wittingly or unwittingly, to weaken the spirit of the German people.

Hugh Hutton was not alone in anticipating a repeat of such excuses from the German high command. The trials of German war criminals were meant to demonstrate to the German people the culpability of their political, military, and law enforcement leaders down to the soldiers and petty officers below them.

"I'm No War Criminal" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, New York, May 13, 1945

Fred Ellis, in the communist Daily Worker, lent no credence to German militarist protests that they had nothing to do with their fascist politicians. His was a view shared by most citizens of Allied nations.

"When a Feller Needs a Friend" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News, ca. May 28, 1945

The caption to Burt Thomas's cartoon riffs on a well-known cartoon series by Clare Briggs. Here the Big Three have their separate ideas on how to raise the Post-war World.

Uncle Sam represents the U.S. in Thomas's cartoon, and John Bull represents Great Britain, whereas the U.S.S.R. is personified by its actual head of state, Joseph Stalin. The U.S.A. had a brand new president, Franklin Roosevelt having died a month earlier; and Britain's wartime coalition government was heading for overdue elections.

"The Bear's Revenge" by Harold “Tom” Carlisle in Des Moines Register, ca. May 19, 1945 

One could still find positive cartoons of Stalin in the American press such as this one by Harold Carlisle, acknowledging that the war could not have been won without the Soviet Union's participation, and the heavy cost its citizens paid repelling the German invasion of their country. 

If Carlisle's style looks suspiciously like that of John "Ding" Darling, it is likely because Carlisle worked under Darling as inker, and was here filling in while Darling took a day off.

"The Liberator" by Joseph Parrish in Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1945

Taking a decidedly dimmer view of our sometime ally in the war, Joseph Parrish notes that on the Soviet Union's way to Berlin, Stalin had installed puppet governments in the Baltic states. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia would be absorbed into the U.S.S.R., while Poland would retain its independence, if only in name.

My source for this Parrish cartoon was in grayscale, but it appears to me that the Chicago Tribune took to printing its front page editorial cartoon in full color sometime in 1943, until dropping the front page cartoon in 1970. I've re-colored the flags held by the Baltic nations, but I didn't want to venture guesses on the clothing and shadows.

"Hard on a Nervous Old Girl" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, May 21, 1945

The Entente Powers had promised Austria-Hungary's Adriatic coast to Italy as inducement to get Italy to join their side in World War I. The Treaty of Versailles awarded the city of Trieste to Italy, which was less than the Italian government wanted.

Since Italy was on the losing side of World War II, the question of whether Italy should have to give up any territory in Europe arose. The late President Woodrow Wilson's position that borders should reflect the populations within them (rather than what regent had inherited what property) had gained followers since World War I, but Trieste and environs were populated by both Italians and Slavs. Drawing ethnically considered borders there would have required exacting precision.

(Europeans were much more careless about drawing borders in Africa and the Mideast. That's another story entirely.)

"The Phoenix" by Roy Justus in Minneapolis Star-Journal, May 17, 1945

I would like to have included a cartoon about Norway's arrest on May 10 and subsequent trial of its Minister President, Nazi collaborationist Vidkun Quisling. After all, his name entered the English language as a spineless traitor. 

This Syttende mai cartoon by Roy Justus, whose Minnesota readers might have appreciated the date, will have to do — although surely there must be an appropriate allusion to Norse rather than Greek mythology.

"It's Time We Got Started on a New Model" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Daily Star, May 24, 1945

Turning back to those British elections: it was generally expected that Winston Churchill would not remain Prime Minister, and would have to turn the government over to Labour leader Clement Atlee.

"It's Going to Be Hard to Explain" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, May 27, 1945

Even if Americans didn't understand why Britons would be so ungrateful.

Or how cricket is played.

"Same Old Monkey Wrench" by Harold Talburt, May 21, 1945

Turning to domestic politics here in the United States, Republicans in Congress wanted to return to the Smoot-Hawley brand of tariff policies that had precipitated the Great Depression. Protectionist tariffs were central to Republican administrations from the end of the Civil War and onward, popular with Wall Street, but controversial in the Midwest, West, and South.

Woodrow Wilson, facilitated by the 16th Amendment making federal income taxation constitutional, drastically reduced tariffs, only for Republicans to raise them again in the 1920's. FDR policies then focused on a mix of income taxes on the upper class and deficit spending, first to lift the nation out of the Great Depression, and later to finance the war effort.

"The Shape of Things" by Cal Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 31, 1945

Lastly, to get hyper-domestic about things, Cal Alley wondered what the future would hold for Rosie and her fellow riveters.