Where To Find The Best World War 11 Posters

The poster has always been used as a propaganda tool because it's known that it can send a very powerful message in times of war or during the period leading up to war. World War II posters were common and many people collect them today as nostalgia pieces or snapshot, historical memorabilia. They can tell us a lot about the political attitudes of the time as well as the less serious subject of fashion and hairstyle.

Posters in wartime are used for different purposes; for recruiting into the armed forces, to persuade people on the home front to behave in a certain way or to whip up enthusiasm for war by depicting the enemy in a negative light. World War II posters do all of these. The world was in a desperate state as the Nazi regime and the Japanese assault took hold and these posters don't pretend to be subtle. They send out clear messages with memorable slogans and bold graphics.

British posters carried slogans to motivate citizens with messages such as Careless Talk Costs Lives, Coughs and Sneezes Spread Diseases, Dig for Victory and Look Out in the Blackout. Dig for Victory refers to the campaign to persuade people to grow their own food because merchant ships that were transporting food to Britain were being attacked and sunk. America had similar World War II posters, including one with a picture of a rifle and a spanner, which claimed It's a Two Fisted Fight.

Recruiting posters were used extensively and some were targeted at women. The British Navy showed pictures of uniformed women in different jobs, as aircraft controller, radio operator and parachute rigger. One had the slogan; It's A Woman's War Too.

There are American propaganda posters, which depict Japanese soldiers in poses that depict them as murderers and rapists. Other posters carry slogans such as Remember December 7th and Miles of Hell To Tokyo. Anti-German sentiments were expressed in a poster showing a bomb with the words, More Production, pointed towards a swastika symbol.

On the other side of the divide, the Nazi Party had their World War II posters too. Some show offensive caricatures of Jewish people and some were recruitment posters, showing leaders and soldiers in heroic poses. One advertises a big, Nazi rally and another shows a picture of Hitler with the caption, Be True To The Fuhrer. A lot of the World War II posters from the Allies and the Axis powers seem crude and extreme to our modern sensibilities as we view them today.