Simplicissimus's All-American Edition

Last week, we looked at several American cartoons celebrating allied victories in the mid-summer of 1918. By way of equal time, Simpleback Saturday presents each and every one of the cartoons in the August 27, 1918 edition of Simplicissimus, the German satirical weekly out of Munich.

"Amerika" by Wilhelm Schultz in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

Every single cartoon but one* is critical of the United States. Wilhelm Schultz's cover cartoon, showing a buffalo driven by Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt to charge the personification of Peace, pairs the incumbent president with one of the U.S.A.'s leading advocates of war prior to April, 1917. It mattered little to the staff of Simplicissimus that Roosevelt's youngest son, Quentin, had recently been killed in action over over the Marne River on July 14, 1918.

"Im Senat zu Washington" by Karl Arnold in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

If you've been following this series for a while, you may remember that there certainly were U.S. Senators and Congressmen who advocated against their country entering World War I, even after the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Wilson himself ran for reelection under the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War."

But has always happened since the days of President Polk, whenever a President decides it's time to go to war, any argument to the contrary is branded unpatriotic or worse.

"Das Land der Freiheit" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

Persecution of German-American citizens is a common theme in several of the August 27 cartoons. None of them, as far as I can tell, describe any actual incidents, any more than Sidney Joseph Greene's imagined tennis camp for saboteurs did. Interment camps in Fort Douglas, Utah and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia housed some 2,048 German emigrants swept up under provisions of the Alien Enemies Act Presidential Proclamations issued shortly after the U.S. entry into the war. Many would not be released until June of 1919; some not until May of 1920.

"Deutschenverfolgung" by Eduard Thöny in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

Even after some spectacular cases of espionage and sabotage by German agents in the U.S., only one German spy was ever sentenced to death in this country; and his sentence was commuted after the war. Nor is there any record of Germans being lynched in this country, although Eduard Thöny's cartoon demonstrates that our habit of race lynching was well-known beyond our borders.

"Der Sieg der Demokratie" by Karl Arnold in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

Which is not to say that it was all tee and krullers for German-Americans. And while I know of no examples of tarring and feathering, there was a sharp rise in police reports against anything perceived as suspicious activity of Deutschsprachige citizens. If Gretchen and Hilda were gossiping over the back fence, they had better be doing it loudly and in English.

"Kinderhilfsdienst im America" by Carl Olav Petersen in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

"Honest, Your Honor, it was to me as 'Freedom Cabbage' being sold!"

"Es Lebe die Freiheit!" by Erich Schiller in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

Two panels by Erich Schilling appear one atop the other as if they were meant to be two frames comprising one cartoon; but they each have their own title and there's no continuity between them, so I've put in my own little commentary between them just for the hell of it. In the top panel, what the U.S. called Liberty Loans he calls "Liberty Bonds." (Is "Freiheitsanleihe" an oxymoron in German as "Liberty Bond" is in English?) The U.S. government was about to authorize a fourth series of bonds of 1918, and a fifth bond would be necessary in April after the war was over.

Banks and other financial institutions took out Liberty Loans as an investment opportunity, but participation by private citizens was minimal. The first three bonds matured during the 1920s, but the government would default on the fourth bond in 1932.

"Schutz der Kleinen Völker" by Erich Schilling, still in Simplicissimus, still in Munich, still August 27, 1918

Schilling even casts some libel Thomas Edison's way, yet somehow without incorporating electricity into his imagined invention. I mean, seriously now, there's nothing to distinguish this Streckbank from its medieval forebears, and Mr. Edison was more imaginative than that.

He would have stolen the idea from Nikola Tesla instead.

"Wilsonismus" by Thomas Theodor Heine in Simplicissimus, Munich, August 27, 1918

Finally we reach the back page, where another cartoon by Thomas Theodor Heine seems to pair with a satirical story below it set in my home state:

The Adventure of Wisconsin

Several madmen made a tumultuous escape from an insane asylum in the state of Wisconsin. From the patriotic demeanor of their guards and caretakers, a number of the sick drew the curious conclusion that they were healthy, and demanded the immediate release to American freedom.
Only the time-tested absent-mindedness of Reverend Abraham O'Connor was to be thanked for avoiding severe outbursts. The venerable gentleman came to the escapees and exclaimed, "We strive for reason and morality! Be good idiots! Make your mistake good again! Buy Liberty Bonds!" — whereupon the rebels fled in terror into their cells and thanked God that they could stay in comfortable-idiotic bondage.

_________
* The sole exception is this single-column cartoon by R. Grieß tucked in among the advertisements on page six:

In heavily accented German (Google Translate wanted to know if I meant to translate from Luxembourgish), one of these vagabonds tells the other that one dog year equals seven human years. The other replies, "That may well be, but in war, one human year equals seven dog years."

The accent probably sells the joke.

Thankfully, World War I fell short of lasting seven human years. Meanwhile, returning to the present: today's incoming college freshmen — and, of course, fresh military recruits — have lived their entire lives with the United States at war in Afghanistan.

German Cartoonists and the War

After last week's display of Louis Raemaekers cartoons, Spottenback Saturday now grants a few German cartoonists of World War I a chance to give their say. Except for the Gulbransson cartoon, these cartoons were reprinted in contemporary issues of Cartoons Magazine, published out of Chicago, which means they must have had to get past both German and U.S. wartime censors. As such, it is possible that they may not necessarily be the best examples of German wartime satire.

"The Blood Bath," From Der Brummer, Berlin, 1917

American troops joined the fighting in Europe in August of 1917, and patriotic fervor in the U.S. was at a peak, so the above cartoon very much misrepresents American popular feeling. The nations wading in the blood bath do not include Germany or its allies, which would have gotten this cartoon (and possibly its cartoonist) spiked.

German government dismissed "America's worthless assistance" to the Entente powers. Gustav Brandt here offers one idea to buttress the official government line, a fine example of the jugendstil of bold, flat areas of solid color that became popular among German cartoonists of the early 20th Century.

by Gustav Brandt in Kladderadatsch, Berlin

Better known west of the Maginot Line as art nouveau, jugendstil gets its name from Jugend, a cultural magazine published in Munich. Brandt himself (1861-1919) was at this time a long-established cartoonist whose earlier cartoons conformed to 19th Century tastes for greater detail and verisimilitude.

Here's another example of jugendstil, with a similar jab at Wilson as a money-grubbing capitalist, this time from a Simplicissimus cartoonist about Pope Benedict XV's peace proposal.

"Wilson's Answer" by Olaf Gulbransson in Simplicissimus, Munich, September 18, 1917

Another Kladderadatsich cartoonist lampoons the refusal of England's Lloyd George, the U.S.'s Wilson and France's Poincaré to consider German armistice proposals; each had declared that an end to Hohenzollern rule of Germany was a prerequisite condition for peace.

"We Will Never Negotiate" by unidentified cartoonist (Arthur Johnson?) in Kladderadatsch, Berlin

Speaking of Russia, Wilhelm Schulz in the brash satirical magazine Simplicissimus portrays Germany proffering a helping hand to its eastern neighbor. Russia, however, is threatened by its erstwhile allies.

"Helpless Russia" by Wilhelm Schulz in Simplicissimus, Munich, July 17, 1917

The U.S. was not the only Johnny-come-marching-lately into the Great War. In spite of its recent history with England and Russia, and the fact that its rival Japan had also sided with the Entente, China declared war on Germany in August, 1917.

"China" by W. A. Wellner in Lustige Blätter,  Berlin, January 1917

Given British and Russian imperialist designs on China, there was significant support in military and government circles for an alliance with Germany; one such supporter was former President/future Premier Sun Yat-sen. But the government of Duan Qirui viewed an Entente victory as more likely than a victory by the Central powers and hoped to gain territory at any post-war bargaining table. (They would be bitterly disappointed.)

"Tremble, Germania!" by Carl Olof Petersen in Lustige Blätter, Berlin, July 23, 1917

The sinking of the Athos I with 900 Chinese workers aboard by a German U-boat off the coast of Malta in February, 1917, furthermore, served as China's Lusitania moment. Yet if Germany was officially unconcerned with America's entry into the war, it was hardly any more worried about the Chinese navy.