Vania N.
WHAP
Ann Richards School FYWL
The poster above is german propaganda that was used in World War II to try and convince the youth to join Hitler. This poster and all the others that were created during this period of time are important because they represent how youth were being lured into joining in on the war, that their lives would be better if they joined the Hitler Youth (HJ). For present day, this piece is important because it shows the public the type of ways that children were being manipulated in order for the German side to not run low on soldiers; for their army not to weaken as they lost soldiers.
OVERVIEW
This poster shows a young blond haired boy with Hitler behind him. There are also two sentences/ phrases in German on the top and bottom of the poster.
PARTS
In the poster, the main focus includes two faces: one of a blond boy and the face of Hitler. Even though the poster isn’t clear with the colors, it’s most likely that the boy was depicted with blue eyes. Focusing more on the boy, his facial expression shows many different thoughts, two of the main ones being both confusion and curiosity. He was probably depicted that way to represent the general boys and the expressions that most of them held when they were being convinced to join the Hitler Youth. When looking at Hitler’s expression, he shows anger and maybe even determination. On the top of the poster there is a phrase: ‘jugend dient dem führer’, which in english is youth is the leader. At the bottom of the poster we have the second half of the phrase which is: ‘alle zehnjährigen in die hj’ and it translates to every ten years in hj (HJ being Hitler-Jugend/Hitler Youth).
TITLE
‘Jugend dient dem Führer: Alle Zehnjährigen in die hj’ is the title of the piece, which would translate into: Youth is the leader: Every ten years in hj’. By the title, one can infer that the youth were the key to war, they would be the ones that kept it going. The title also expresses that if a young boy joined the Hitler Youth, they would be the leaders; so they boys that joined the hj probably did so because they thought they would have power and leadership.
INTERPRETATION
This poster was produced in order to grasp the attention of young boys, for them to join the Hitler Youth to then train and be ready for war. But, the poster itself doesn’t show what the actual war looks like, and by not having that element, the boys wouldn’t be so terrified. By the poster claiming that the Hitler Youth were the leaders, probably also made the boys believe that they would eventually gain authority over others, which wasn’t true because Hitler had no plans of passing on his power to anyone. So, the poster held the message that any boy who joined the hj would have leadership.
CONTEXT
The poster was produced in 1941, during World War II (1939-1945), which had a high population lost due to the fact that Hitler wanted a genocide and the harsh conditions in which the soldiers were fighting in. This war had many countries and regions around the world that were united; there were many allies. The bad guys in the war was Nazi Germany which targeted people that didn’t have blue eyes and brown hair, in which case the torture that would be carried out would be determined based off of the gender of the person and their age.
CONCLUSION
Stepping back and looking at the poster as one, it shows that Nazi Germany saw boys as disposable, that because they hadn’t experienced life yet, it would be alright to send them of to war. It shows the manipulation that many boys experienced by looking at the boy in the poster and seeing that they would be leaders. This piece of art is important to what we are learning today because we are able to piece together all of history and make the connections; one things lead to another which lead to another and it eventually lead us to where our world is today. The poster shows that during this time period, boys where seen as valuable but also people that could be easily replaced, and it connects to modern day in how our society is more egalitarian now than how it was about seventy years ago.
endlessautumndays 
The information provided could’ve been more thorough and detailed. But, the information that is there allows the reader to understand the event that was occurring. It could’ve been more helpful to write about the war and why it occurred.
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The choice of art is effective in giving the reader an understanding of what propaganda looked like, The poster also gives the reader of how children were perceived and for what they were used. Overall, the choice of art was effective in giving the reader an understanding of the manipulation going on with children.
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