Saturday, June 23, 2012

Italian WWII propaganda posters

Click any image to enlarge
Italian WWII propaganda posters are different than the usual posters from that era in that they come in two distinct phases: the early triumphal phase, and the posters they produced as the war began to go bad for them. 

In that later phase the posters are much darker and more violent as they connect American bombing raids with American gangsters and the defiling of Italian/Roman culture. They also appeal to racial fears of black American troops in a starkly racist manner.

There are more posters after the jump.






2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where can i find out where any of the posters is from time wise?

Tom said...

"...as the war began to go badly for them." So, like a couple months after hostilities began, basically.

One poster I've been trying to find for years relates to the bombing of Rome before it was successfully declared an open city for its cultural/religious value (note that "Londra" never received the same consideration during the Regia Aeronautica's farcically inept contribution to the Battle of Britain).

It was a beautiful painting of the ancient Roman pantheon reacting in slack-jawed horror at the sight of American bombers (for some reason I clearly remember them being Martin B-26 Marauders, which saw a lot of use in the Med) as Rome burns below them. Clearly the intent was to show how vile it was that America would dare attack the birthplace of European culture, but it really came across more as "the United States Army Air Force is more powerful than God(s)."