Victory in Europe Anniversary

This year marks the 55th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, commemorating the unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allied Forces on May 8, 1945.

At the start of U.S. involvement in World War II, the Roosevelt administration wanted to counter the powerful antiwar messages of media figures such as newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and radio personality Father Coughlin. They did so with propaganda posters.

Widely dispersed in low-cost campaigns, propaganda posters typically present a pointed, hard-hitting image that scream out their messages. Here, Karl Koehler and Victor Ancona portray a sinister Nazi officer, echoing Roosevelt's characterization of the Axis powers as gangsters, bandits, and criminals.

To view more American propaganda posters, visit our virtual exhibition Posters, American Style.

Source: Posters: American Style (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1999) at http://americanart.si.edu/collections/exhibits/posters/index.html.

Pictured: Karl Koehler, born 1913 and Victor Ancona, born 1912; Printed by Grinnell Lithographic Co., This is the Enemy, 1942, offset lithograph, 34 x 24 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Barry and Melissa Vilkin.