Poster Saturday: Exhibition of the Work of German Prisoners of War held in Switzerland as Internees.

This is a poster by the legendary, at least in Germany, German illustrator Ludwig Hohlwein.  This poster is translated a variety of ways on the net, which I think is likely due to the fact that its written in German script which is hard for even most English speakers of German to read and that people haven't made much of an effort to slog through it.  Indeed, I've found no complete translation of the poster and some that I have seen are flat out wrong.

I'm pretty sure that what the correct translation would be is as follows:

From 22 May to 19 June, 1918
Orchestra House
To go to the benefit of Bavarian Prisoners of War
Exhibition of the Work of German Prisoners of War held in Switzerland as Internees.

The poster of course shows a bored looking German soldier.

This is one of only a few Central Power posters I've put up to date, frankly for the reason that I don't want to to seem that I'm an Imperial German Wehraboo, even though my frequent criticism of German strategy in 1918 should make that pretty plain anyhow.  Of course, I'm not above criticizing the decisions of other strategist in the war from the other sides in my arm chair strategist role, but none the less.

It's temping to call the illustrator here, Ludwig Hohlwein, the German Norman Rockwell but that wouldn't be accurate except in the sense that he was a huge presence in German illustration for all of the first half of the 20th Century.  Unlike Rockwell, and perhaps  more like Leydecker, he did a massive amount of commercial illustration.  However, unlike Leydecker, it was commercial illustration and poster art that really defined Hohlwein.

Hohlwein was older than Rockwell or Leydecker, having been born in 1874, and his first commercial illustrations appeared in the 1890s.  He was bizarrely fully formed in his style from the very onset of his work.  He was self taught by had had an architecture background which showed in his work.  Prior to and during World War One he was in high demand for advertising art in Germany but he did cross over to work of the type above.

Following World War One he began to illustrate outside of Germany including works for advertisements in France and the United States, where he picked up a couple of cigarette companies as clients.  At the same time, however, he becomes problematic to a degree as he also did work on at least one occasion for the Stahlhelm, and following Hitler's rise to power he did works of Nazi propaganda.  He joined the Nazi Party very soon after Hitler's rise to power and achieved the height of his personal commercial success in that period.  He was briefly banned from doing works following World War Two due to his association with the Nazis but was released from that restriction and returned to commercial illustration, which he did until his death in 1949.

Hohlweiin was such a major force in illustration that people who are aware of him tend to either outright ignore his Nazi works or to apologize for him noting that none of them were anti semetic.  The apologies don't hit, however, in that he was an early Nazi and his style lended itself to the glorification of the Nazi ideal, which was itself anti semetic and evil in other ways. That association doesn't seem to have hindered his return to work after the ban on his art was lifted, but then all of German society was itself likewise tainted at the time.