Another propaganda piece is an artwork created by Herbert Smagon in 1989 titled “The Fall of the Berlin Wall” and it portrays the drastic difference between West and East Germany. Smagon’s controversial work solidifies the piece as propaganda; His service in World War Two had a huge influence on his art, which revolved around Nazi soldiers and graphic war scenes. The piece shows the oppression those in the communist country endured and how the destruction of the wall will bring them back into the light of freedom.

https://medium.com/@catiecooper1414/why-propaganda-changed-how-we-viewed-the-berlin-wall-65be231ce6b5

Imagine not only thinking but unironically painting this piece and thinking it portrayed Western Germany as a good place.

  • OprahsedCreature@lemmy.mlEnglish
    51·
    10 days ago

    Come to the capitalist West where women have to fuck strangers so they don’t starve to death you oppressed commies!

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    49·
    10 days ago

    CW: Discussion of CSA depicted as anti-communist propaganda by the artist responsible for this painting

    This is almost certainly, like this must be anti-fascist satire. Look at the elements

    • Disney, an American cultural imperialist icon

    • Coca-cola, natch

    • Pornography

    • prostitution

    • consumerism

    • gin, the most wretched of all alcoholic beverages

    • Bananas that were overwhelmingly associated with communist oppression for reasons

    • Axel Springer is a media company that publishes the tabloid rag “Bild”. Notably the elder Springer divorced his wife, who was Jewish per the Nuremberg laws, so he could continue working as a Nazi publisher. Some small amount of credit, he apparently did support his wife in some way or another and she did survive the camps. Like every other German who survived the war he was simply helpless to resist the Nazis, he’s very sorry, he had no choice, and please ignore that he was a member of a Nazi paramilitary organization. The Red Army Faction bombed the Axel Springer offices in the 70s and the rag is right wing to it’s core.

    But then on the other hand the tombstones at the bottom are people who were killed crossing the wall, so who knows?

    Welp, I looked the guy up. CW applies here -

    spoiler

    He’s famous for drawing pictures of Red Army soldiers gleefully sexually assaulting and murdering blond haired blue eyed German children. :::

    I have no fucking idea what is going on with this picture. I assume, in light of his politics, this is some kind of “Both sides are bad” fascist wank about a “D*” Western Germany and a lifeless oppressed Eastern Germany.

    Maybe it’s “The East Germans thought we were going to rescue them in to a good pure fascist Aryan society but actually we’ve been overwhelmed by “D*” so West Germany is actually bad”?

    Fuck idk who can understand what Fascists think they’re doing.

      • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        23·
        10 days ago

        Yeah, I think the artist was a mass of fascist brainworms hiding in a skin-suit and this is supposed to depict joyous Eastern Germans rushing to supposed freedom only to be embraced by what a Fascist thinks is “moral degredation” or something. ie, the treat hog west German hedonists have betrayed the purity of the Aryan nation, blah blah blah, the East Germans are rushing from one oppression to the other.

        That’s the best I can come up with to explain this in light of the artists brainworms.

    • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      10 days ago

      Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time, including major state investments in their education and training, their full incorporation into the labor force, generous maternity leave allowances and guaranteed free child care. But there’s one advantage that has received little attention: Women under Communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure. A comparative sociological study of East and West Germans conducted after reunification in 1990 found that Eastern women had twice as many orgasms as Western women.

      Per NY Times: https://archive.is/da9fy