Bolschewismus ist Hungern und Tod: niemals aber Frieden [Bolshevism means hunger and death: but never peace]

German anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster depicting a starving woman holding the body of her dead child. The poster translates from the German as: 'Bolshevism means hunger and death, but never will it lead to peace'. The poster provides a context for the social, cultural, emotional and political situations in Germany during and immediately after the First World War. It also provides an insight into the way war was viewed and experienced by the German nation, of German war propaganda and the chaotic period immediately following the first World War when a struggle for the rights of the German people began between the radical Communists on the left and the strident anti-Bolsheviks on the right. The German Weimar National Assembly (German: Weimarer Nationalversammlung) governed Germany from February 6 1919 to June 6 1920 and drew up the new constitution which governed Germany from 1919 to 1933, technically remaining in effect even until the end of Nazi rule in 1945. The vote in the National Assembly still reflected public opinion as it was in November and December 1918. Those who sympathised with the revolution and the republic, the Socialist and democratic parties, achieved a great success. Those who opposed the Bolsheviks saw their success as leading to social, cultural and moral decay in the new Germany, as in this poster. The German painter, sculptor and graphic artist Hanns (Johannes) Anker (1873-1950) studied at the Berlin School for the Decorative and Applied Arts and the Berlin Art Academy. His academy studies in Germany were followed by training under J.P. Laurens and at the Académie Julian in Paris. Appreciated for his work as a graphic artist and illustrator, Anker illustrated numerous novels and children's books and portfolios of his prints were published during the 1920s. He worked as a graphic artist and also designed a sample catalogue containing ornaments, vignettes and series of figures for H. Berhold, type-founders in Berlin/St Petersburg, which was later circulated as the Anker series. He died in Hannover, Germany in 1950.