World War II in Cartoons

Reviewed by Michael Peck
The Military Book Review

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a single political cartoon says more than a dozen history books. Wartime cartoons are fascinating because they reveal more about the writer than the target. Depictions of Jews as monsters in Nazi propaganda and portrayals of the Japanese as buck-toothed monkeys in American cartoons speak volumes about how the combatants really felt.

World War II in Cartoons contains numerous editorial cartoons from Axis, Allied and neutral nations. Some pieces are brilliant, especially those from the pen of legendary British cartoonist David Low. The book contains his classic cartoon of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, in which archenemies Hitler and Stalin courteously bow to each other as they divide up Poland ("The scum of the earth, I believe?" Hitler politely asks Stalin. "The bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?" Stalin replies).

Some cartoons are nasty, such as the 1941 SS cartoon of "Jew York" and a "Jewish" face on the Statue of Liberty. Some seem silly to modern eyes, like the 1943 Italian poster of an American gangster (who ironically resembles a character from a Mafia flick) machine-gunning Italian civilians. And some cartoons are painfully prophetic, like the British soldier sadly telling his comrade as they squat in the wet Burmese jungle: "When this is all over, I suppose some ape will write a book about it and try to make out it was funny."

No collection of World War II cartoons would be complete without the familiar Bill Maudlin cartoons of those famous hard-luck American infantrymen, Willie and Joe. There are also plenty of Soviet cartoons, including a winter 1941 sketch of Napoleon lecturing a frozen schoolboy Hitler about marching on Moscow. Even a few Japanese cartoons make an appearance, with rather feeble attempts to sow dissension between Americans and Australians, British and Indians.

Each cartoon is accompanied by a caption that describes the historical context (and translates the non-English text). Some of the racial cartoons are disturbing, as they show the lengths that human beings will go to demonize each other even as they make themselves look heroic. Still, World War II in Cartoons offers a valuable look at how the combatants saw their adversaries and themselves.