Posters That Changed Behavior

WWII posters were short, visual, and emotionally manipulative — Instagram before Instagram:

• "Loose Lips Sink Ships" — made Americans paranoid about casual conversation
• "Rosie the Riveter" — helped recruit roughly 6 million women into the wartime workforce
• "Is YOUR trip really necessary?" — guilted civilians into saving fuel for the military

The Nazis pushed the same imagery in moving pictures too. Their 1940 propaganda film "Der ewige Jude" (The Eternal Jew), directed by Fritz Hippler, included a notorious sequence that likened Jewish people to disease-spreading rats — vile dehumanization meant to prime the public for persecution.

Allied posters sold unity and sacrifice. Axis propaganda sold hatred and obedience. Both worked terrifyingly well.