JF Ptak Science Books Post 2700
There is probably no doubt that a lot of book and pamphlet cover art printed during the war would feature plenty of Berlin/Germany/Barbed wire/Bayonets and other sharp and pointed things leading their dagger-y way to the hearty of the country. I really hadn't recognized it as a motif despite its pretty obvious design implications until I had three examples from my own collection right in front of me. I've written about the first two on the blog before for various reasons unrelated to the sake of its design. The third, Report from Berlin " by a German Communist" is something I thought I had addressed earlier but hadn't, and presents a strong case in itself, as with the others.
The overall tenor in the pamphlet shows the position of doomed Germany from the inside out, and starts the whole thing noting that "June 22 [1941] was the most fateful day in Germany's history", stating that "at 6 a.m." Hitler gave a speech announcing the invasion of the Soviet Union, which the writer in 1942 finds the beginning of the end for Germany, and in this was mostly correct. The author goes on to describe the food shortages, working conditions, morale and teh consequences of bombing, the fear and loathing of the secret police, and so forth.
The "author" end of this equation is not clear: outside of "German communist" the writer isn't explicitly identified. There is an "introduction" signed by Hans Kahle, who was a very prominent figure as an anti-fascist in the history of modern Germany, an impressive force, and he may well be the author of the entire text. WorldCat/OCLC--which finds about ten copies of this work in libraries worldwide, and those mostly overseas--lists Kahle as an author, and then in another listing also lists the illustrator of the cover, the great John Heartfield, as an author as well. (Heartfield is remembered as with Georg Grosz as elevating the use of art as a political weapon, exercising it in both wars as well as the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists, and as a photo-montagist and Dadist.) In any event, the pamphlet was published by this German Communist whilst in exile in London in 1942, and was a general screed on the doomed damnation of the Nazis.
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