Anti-Jewish Campaign Poster

In 1932, Adolf Hitler ran for German president against several candidates, including the incumbent, Paul von Hindenburg. In the campaign, Nazi propagandists generally avoided attacks on von Hindenburg, who was a popular World War I hero. Instead, they denounced the people who backed the current president or German democracy. Although Hitler generally refrained from using antisemitic propaganda in his election campaign, the Nazis did use anti-Jewish language in areas where they felt it would play well with voters.

This handbill uses racialized text and images to highlight the differences between the supporters of Hindenburg and those of Hitler. The top line reads: “We Are Voting for Hindenburg!” The typeface is designed to look like Hebrew in order to emphasize the point that Jews backed the current president, while ethnic Germans backed Hitler. The boldfaced line, “We Are Voting for Hitler!” is composed in a version of Fraktur, an old and common German font. Many 1932 German voters would have immediately understood such visual cues.

Likewise, Nazi propagandists chose images of prominent German Jewish political and cultural figures, most of whom had been subjects of strong Nazi criticism. The persons shown include socialist economist and former finance minister Rudolf Hilferding, leading journalist Georg Bernhard, and sexologist and gay rights activist Magnus Hirschfeld. It also includes Johannes Bell, the Catholic politician who signed the Treaty of Versailles on behalf of the German government, as well as Prussian police officials who used their authority to crack down on Nazi violence.

In contrast, Hitler’s supporters are portrayed as strong ethnic Germans. The supporting individuals shown include well-known Nazi leaders such as Hermann Göring, Alfred Rosenberg, and Joseph Goebbels.

The concluding words of the handbill emphasize the racist intent of the propaganda: “Look at these heads and You know where You belong!” The text works in two ways: first, the voter should choose whether he or she supports Hindenburg or Hitler, and second, the voter must decide in which racial grouping he or she wants to belong: Jewish or German.