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What to Do When the Bombs (and Gas) Come(s)–Austria, 1935.

JF Ptak Science Books  (Earlier post corrected).

1ebay_oct_4nazi_prop747 This is another in a series of posts about the use of maps and images in propaganda, principally concentrating in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  This pamphlet, Luftschutz durch Selbstschutz Schtz fuer jedermann bei Fliegerangrissen), was published by the Luftschutzbund and written by Hugo Noll in Vienna in 1935.  The title page claims that this is the 4th (augmented) edition, with the print run already above 30,000 (which you can either believe or not (is there anyone who starts their program out as version 1.0?)) 
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The pamphlet begins right at the beginning–the cover shows Austria in red, surrounded by airplanes of its enemies, with a bomb coming down into the heart of the country in a yellow triangle (which resembles a flame).  The striking design begs to be picked up by anyone who sees it–as I did, as a person here in its future; I’m sure that it must’ve been very provocative to its target audience.  It gets immediately into the idea of Austria being surrounded by nations who wish do it harm by air.  Another map in the text is more detailed and shows exactly where the threat was coming from–as you can see the threat was coming perhaps from everywhere, except Germany, which as the map indicates had no aircraft in its air force. Austria of course would be annexed in the Anschluss of 12 March 1938, just three years later.   

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The main body of the text is a series of warnings about what to do when the bombs come; the rest of it has to do with preparing yourself and your household from attack, which means that there’s allot of digging and canning and putting away water and fire retardant.  In general the population was getting very stirred up about the sure-to-arrive but survivable Apocalypse.  
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