All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow

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Election poster for the CDU from 1953

All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow! is an election campaign slogan that appeared on a well - known anti-communist election poster of the Union parties for the 1953 federal election .

description

The poster is divided into two parts, with the top about one third. Above is the upper part of the head of a man wearing a peaked cap resembling the hats of the Red Army . It shows the red hammer and sickle symbol. The man looks at the viewer with a fixed gaze. In the lower part there are red and gray lines that run towards the man's face as a vanishing point . At right angles to the lines is the slogan in two lines and in white letters: “All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow!” Below that is the slogan “Darum CDU ” or “Darum CSU ” in a separate line .

interpretation

For Angelika Plum, the representation of the enemy as a giant looking over the horizon can hardly be increased in its monumentality. For Hermann Burkhardt, the viewer of the poster “takes the place of the victim, a mouse, a small, helpless animal, a tiny human that is at the mercy of the claws and mouth of an overpowering monster”. Christoph Hamann sees the uniform cap as a symbol for a militaristic society.

For Gerhard Paul , two interpretations of the lines leading to the man are possible. On the one hand, they could show that Marxism inevitably leads into the depths of space and thus into Bolshevism . On the other hand, they could also be interpreted as spell rays emanating from the man's hypnotic gaze. This view also activates "the fear of surveillance and spying associated with the Soviet system ". For Plum, too, the lines pull the viewer under the spell of the man. According to Paul, the writing, arranged vertically to the lines, forms a bolt through which the Union is represented as the only bearer of hope against communist totalitarianism .

This lack of alternatives is also emphasized with the slogan, which generally devalues the programs of left-wing parties by using the phrase "All ways ..." . The main target was the SPD , the largest opposition party. In addition, the slogan should spark fear of communism, Marxism and the Soviet Union . According to Fritz Hermanns, however, this was only possible because this fear had already prevailed in large parts of the population and only had to be reactivated. In addition, the slogan should also be read as a rational argument. From the two premisesSocialism leads to Stalinism ” and “We do not want Stalinism ” the logical conclusion that one has to vote for a party that does not want socialism. In addition to the statement that an SPD government would lead to conditions like in the Soviet Union, Gerd Müller can also interpret the fact that the SPD has connections to Moscow and is externally controlled from there.

Creation and templates

Nazi propaganda poster (1943) on the Vinnytsia massacre.

The poster is said to have been designed by two graphic artists from Wuppertal named Bonk and Brandt on the basis of a propaganda postcard from the Volksbund for Peace and Freedom . The design of this postcard, in turn, is said to go back to Eberhard Taubert and Rudolf Fust, both of whom were previously active in the propaganda of the National Socialists .

Two US anti-German war propaganda posters could have served as additional templates . On the one hand, the poster designed by Frederick Strothmann from the First World War Beat back the Hun with Liberty Bonds , on which a German soldier lurking on the horizon with a spiked hat , blood-smeared hands and bayonet threatens the world. On the other hand, the poster He's watching you from 1942, designed by Glenn Grohe , on which the upper part of the head of a Wehrmacht soldier wearing a steel helmet can be seen, who fixes the viewer with a fixed gaze.

Gerhard Paul also reminds the poster of a National Socialist propaganda poster from 1943 depicting the Vinnytsia massacre as a Jewish communist crime. A man can be seen above the photo of the exhumed corpses, aiming a revolver directly at the viewer. He wears a hat with a red star and has the "Jewish facial features" typical of Nazi propaganda.

Angelika Plum sees similarities in the red lines to the red rays of the sun on the Japanese military flag Kyokujitsuki , which was often used in anti-Japanese propaganda posters during World War II .

The slogan of the poster is said to go back to the phrase " All roads lead to Rome ".

criticism

Criticism of the poster is directed not only against the misuse of fear of Bolshevism for party political goals but also against the defamation of the SPD through its alleged proximity to the Soviet Union. This would call into question the anti-totalitarian consensus of the democratic parties in the young Federal Republic. These allegations are also untrue, since the SPD was more anti-communist at that time than ever before and did not allow other parties to surpass it. However, it was not until 1959 that the SPD removed the last Marxist references from its program with the Godesberg program.

Aftermath

The poster and the slogan unfolded their effect after the federal election campaign in 1953. The slogan was used in everyday language and the motif in the visual language of the Federal Republic. In addition, the poster is often shown in school books and exhibitions as a symbol of the early Federal Republic. Friederike Höhn calls it an icon .

The motif has also been adapted several times. In 1972, for example, the NPD used a very similar motif on one of their election posters. The man depicted on it has a different face and is wearing a Russian fur hat . The slogan of the poster reads: “Renunciation is treason (Brandt himself said - 1963). Defend yourself against the red danger. NPD ". It was directed against Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik .

A cover of Der Spiegel from 2007 also adapted the poster. It shows Russian President Vladimir Putin wearing a fur hat. The red lines have been replaced by gas pipes . Drilling rigs and pumps can be seen in the background . The title of the edition is Gazprom State . Putin's energy empire .

On 16 March 2014 appeared on the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung over the lead story Moscow nimmmt Ukraine in the pliers , which deals with the Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation concerned, a section of the election poster. In the same issue, next to the article Steinmeier great illusion, a picture by Frank-Walter Steinmeier was shown, in the background of which gray-red stripes spread out. These representations were criticized by the deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group Axel Schäfer in an email to the FAS as defaming the SPD.

The Rheinische Post used a section of the poster on the front page of its May 14, 2016 issue under the headline Russia is attacking online . The hammer and sickle were then replaced by the flag of Russia .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Image of the CSU poster at the Free University of Berlin .
  2. a b c Angelika Plum: The caricature in the field of tension between art history and political science. An iconological study of the enemy in caricatures. Shaker, Aachen 1998, ISBN 3-8265-4159-6 , p. 154 ( PDF at RWTH Aachen University ).
  3. ^ Hermann Burkhardt: Political posters. (= Klett School Gallery - Teachers Aid, Volume 5) . Klett, Stuttgart 1974.
    Quoted in: Gerhard Paul: "All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow". Anti-communist visual rhetoric . 2008, p. 96.
  4. ^ Christoph Hamann: Vanishing point Birkenau. Stanislaw Mucha's photo of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gatehouse. In Gerhard Paul (Ed.): Visual History. A study book. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 978-3-525-36289-1 , pp. 283-302, here: 296 ( digitized from Google Books).
  5. ^ A b c d e Gerhard Paul: "All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow". Anti-communist visual rhetoric . 2008, p. 90.
  6. Monika Toman-Banke: The election slogans of the federal elections 1949–1994 . Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 978-3-8244-4189-1 , p. 161 ( digitized from Google Books).
  7. ^ Fritz Hermanns: Slogans and catchwords . In Jochen A. Bär , Thorsten Roelcke , Anja Steinhauer (eds.): Linguistic brevity. Conceptual, structural and pragmatic aspects. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-017542-4 , pp. 459–478, here: 465–466 ( digitized from Google Books).
  8. ^ Gerd Müller: The election poster. Pragmatic investigation of language in politics using the example of election posters from the Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1978, ISBN 3-484-10307-8 , p. 204 ( digitized from Google Books).
  9. Klaus Körner: First in Goebbels', then in Adenauer's service . In: Die Zeit , No. 35/1990 ( online ).
  10. Picture at Lebendiges Museum Online .
  11. Picture at the Museum of Modern Art .
  12. ^ Wolfgang Mieder : The Politics of Proverbs. From Traditional Wisdom To Proverbial Stereotypes. The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1997, ISBN 0-299-15454-8 , p. 113 ( digitized from Google Books).
  13. ^ "All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow" - election poster of the Christian Democratic Union (1953). In: German history in documents and pictures . Retrieved August 15, 2018 .
  14. Edgar Wolfrum : The successful democracy. History of the Federal Republic of Germany from its beginnings to the present . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-608-94141-8 , p. 67 ( digitized from Google Books).
  15. ^ A b Gerhard Paul: "All roads of Marxism lead to Moscow". Schlagbilder anti-communist visual rhetoric , 2008, p. 96.
  16. ^ Friederike Höhn: Between Adenauer Youth and Christian Pacifism: The Debate about West German Rearmament in the Early 1950s in Youth Media of the Catholic and Protestant Church. In Aline Maldener, Clemens Zimmermann (ed.): Let's historize it. Youth media in the 20th century. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2018, pp. 97–130, here: 113 ( digitized from Google Books).
  17. March 5, 2007 Re: Title . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 2007 ( online ).
  18. Axel Schäfer: Letter to the FAS. (PDF) In: Heinz-Joachim Barchmann's website . March 20, 2014, accessed August 11, 2018 .
  19. ^ Gregor Mayntz: Cyber ​​crime: Russia attacks on the net. In: RP-online. March 14, 2016, accessed on August 11, 2018 ( picture of the issue on trotat.de).