Except for the world crisis that began in the 1930s, Dr. Seuss might never have drawn a political cartoon.
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was at the center of that world crisis. By the spring of 1941 Hitler controlled all of Europe except for England and the neutral nations—Sweden and Switzerland, the Republic of Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and Spain. Half of France was occupied by Germany, with the other half governed by a collaborationist regime at Vichy. Dr. Seuss’s first cartoon featuring Hitler appeared in May 1941. In this first cartoon, “The head eats...the rest gets milked” (May 19), Hitler is the proprietor of “Consolidated World Dairy,” and he has “consolidated” eleven conquered nations into one cow.81 The final (twelfth) hindquarters has a question mark—who’s next?
In a July 1941 cartoon captioned “crisis in Berchtesgaden,” Hitler is aghast to discover the letter V in his alphabet soup.82 The British had made the V sign an internationally recognized symbol of victory (and of anti-German activities); Berchtesgaden was Hitler’s mountain hideaway. This cartoon refers obliquely to a series of cartoons in the New Yorker dealing with highly unexpected situations, but in a note printed directly underneath the cartoon, Dr. Seuss made his apologies to a second PM cartoonist, Carl Rose. Dr. Seuss wrote the following note to Editor Ingersoll: “Here’s a sad situation. I finished up this picture yesterday, thinking it one of my best...when, socko! in came your Sunday edition, with an alphabet soup gag in Carl Rose’s cartoon. My first impulse was to tear mine up, but I’ve decided to send it along anyway. If you want to tear it up, go ahead, with my blessing. If, on the other hand, you decide it still warrants running, please do so only after explaining things to Rose, and asking his permission....” In August, Hitler appears as a mighty hunter carrying his outsize moose (“vanquished Europe”) home on his shoulders only to have the moose bite him in the rear—“Sabotage.”83 Like the Hitler of the alphabet soup, this Hitler is decidedly unjaunty.
Dr. Seuss depicted Hitler alone; he depicted him among his generals and other Germans; he depicted him with his allies, Benito Mussolini of Italy and Pierre Laval of Vichy France, and, often, a stereotyped “Japan.” Of the cartoons depicting Hitler alone, the most striking appeared in late 1941, one before the United States became involved formally in the fighting but long after Hitler had expanded German control throughout Europe, one after America entered the war. The first (November 10) depicts Hitler as one-man band attempting to play a “New World Symphony” of conquered European nations (count them!) and Italy, the nation that had joined his cause.84 Once again, as in the “Consolidated World Dairy,” France gets top billing. Yugoslavia, Rumania, and Greece are now “the Balkans” and Italy—with Japan, Hitler’s Axis ally—is a part of the picture, albeit a minor one. (Note Hitler’s left boot, cut away to allow Hitler’s toes to grasp the hammers to beat the xylophone.)
In late November, still before Pearl Harbor, Hitler lines up performing seals—”artists assembled from the twelve great capitals of the world” —to issue an “Anti-Comintern blast.”85 The Comintern was the Communist International, 1919–1943, established by Lenin in an attempt to claim Communist control of the world socialist movement. In 1936, Hitler and the Japanese government had signed an Anti-Comintern Pact, and in late 1941 the two countries were joined by eleven other governments in the pact that is the context for this cartoon. At Thanksgiving 1941 (a cartoon not included here) Hitler is chef, and “Uncle Sam” is the turkey on a platter—crosses in eyes, paper ruffles around ankles: “A Toast to Next Thanksgiving: Here’s hoping we’re not the bird!”
“The Latest Self-Portrait” (December 23), which serves as the cover of this volume, depicts Hitler as simultaneously sculptor, subject, mermaid and putti crowning Hitler with knight’s helmet.86 It is the second striking portrait of Hitler alone, and it is a step beyond Hitler as one-man band. This is multiple Hitlers, a jab at Hitler’s unlimited ego. Because of the five faces of Hitler, this cartoon gives us a chance to study Dr. Seuss’s Hitler. Dr. Seuss’s Hitler is jaunty, almost nonchalant. His chin is raised. His hair is combed straight to the side. A single line sketches his cheek. No mouth is visible beneath the brush mustache. His eyes are shut demurely. Note that even the bird on Hitler’s shield—the neck suggests it is a vulture—and the horse echo Hitler’s haircut and cheek-line. And both bird and horse have Hitler’s mustache!
We see Dr. Seuss’s Hitler in a variety of situations over a broad stretch of time. A month after Pearl Harbor, on January 2, 1942, Dr. Seuss portrayed Hitler in a dilemma that reflects the unhappy German military situation: simultaneously “frozen” in Russia and “sunburned” in North Africa (a cartoon not included here). In a series of cartoons in early 1942, Dr. Seuss drew Hitler as a baby: “Mein Early Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.” In the first and most effective of the series, the baby Hitler (“Adolfikins”— complete with brush mustache and adult forelock) gives the unlucky stork delivering him a hotfoot; at the foot of the panel is Hitler’s date of birth.87 Note the tilt of Hitler’s head. In the second cartoon (not included in this volume), Hitler refuses milk from Holstein cows as “non-Aryan.” Holsteins are a Dutch breed, not German, but Dr. Seuss may have been playing on the Jewish-sounding name. In the third (also not included), baby Hitler cuts his first tooth on a bust of Otto von Bismarck, the towering figure of German unification in the late nineteenth century and to many the father figure of virulent German nationalism. In a cartoon of March 1942, Dr. Seuss depicted Hitler bringing snakes back to Ireland, eleven snakes aboard his Nazi submarine.88 The Republic of Ireland maintained neutrality during World War II. British forces did operate in Northern Ireland, despite protest from the Republic.
Perhaps because of the slightly comical air of Dr. Seuss’s Hitler, his two most foreboding Hitler cartoons do not show Hitler’s face.89 One (March 19, 1942) depicts John Q. Citizen polishing Hitler’s boots: “What do YOU expect to be working at after the war?” The shoeshine stand man is roughly the size of one of Hitler’s feet.90 “Second Creation” (April 3, 1942) shows Hitler melting Germans down to recast them in the Nazi mold, heads bowed, right hand raised in the Sieg Heil salute. Here again Hitler dwarfs normal people—the people he melts down and the new human beings he casts. Both cartoons are among the truly memorable cartoons of World War II, epitomizing as they do the essential relation between totalitarian dictator and subject and, indeed, the creation of a new race of slaves. But between them, on March 23, came Dr. Seuss’s standard Hitler. This is not an editorial cartoon but an illustration for a short and humorous news clip. Hitler’s head may be attached to the body of a snake, but he seems a good deal less poisonous than a rattlesnake.
In a cartoon of June 1942, Dr. Seuss dressed Hitler in mermaid garb—and five o’clock shadow—to counter false optimism at reverses to German air power in Europe.91 Hitler as mermaid dwarfs the Allied ships he has impaled on his trident. He also dwarfs the man in the armchair, who in turn dwarfs the buildings among which he sits. Two days later, in “No sign yet of sagging morale,” Dr. Seuss had Hitler riding a dachshund (“The perilously extended Reich”) and supporting the dachshund’s belly with a sling at the end of a pole.92 The Reich may be overextended, but Hitler does not look worried. With rare exceptions, Dr. Seuss’s Hitler is impervious to or oblivious of the problems he faces.
Six months after Pearl Harbor, we find a cartoon in which Hitler sends one of his minions to scout out hell: “A lot of us may be going there one of these fine days.”93 The underling carries a trident and wears horns and a tail—camouflage for a spy in hell; but the horns are clearly tied on, and the tail is clearly part of his absurd union suit. These last two cartoons document a fascinating shift in emphasis. Before Pearl Harbor Dr. Seuss consistently painted Hitler as world threat; after Pearl Harbor—indeed, long before the clear positive swing in Allied fortunes away from the disasters of the fall of Europe in 1939–40 and the Japanese successes of late 1941 and early 1942—Dr. Seuss consigned Hitler to defeat and to hell. Did Dr. Seuss not worry about eventual Allied victory? Did he worry but hide that worry in order to build morale on the home front? Recall Editor Ingersoll’s position paper of January 6, 1942: “We always take Victory for granted.” And note that a Dr. Seuss cartoon of February 1942 (not included in this volume) has two panels, “1941” and a “1942.” In “1941” a confident American has one arm tied behind him, and the restraint is labeled “Conceit.” In “1942” the same fellow has both arms tied behind him, and the second restraint has two labels: “Incompetence” and “Carelessness.” Now he is worried: “Hey, I said one hand...not both!” The cartoon is an attack on all three obstacles to action, but in Dr. Seuss’s vision the situation still seems less than desperate.
In July 1942, Dr. Seuss drew two cartoons with the title “With Adolf in Egypt.” Hitler himself never set foot in Egypt during the war, but beginning in February 1942 Hitler’s Afrika Korps was operating in North Africa. Despite important British bases on its soil, Egypt maintained neutrality into 1945. So the thrust of these cartoons is purely rhetorical: one (July 3, 1942) attributed to Hitler megalomaniac outrage at Muslims praying to Mecca but turning their behinds toward Berlin; the second introduced a Seussian crossbreed—an Aryan camel for Hitler’s use, presumably in North Africa—a dachshund with a hump!94 112
Three cartoons in October placed German war fortunes at a low ebb. In one of them Hitler doesn’t even appear; in another he is present only as a photograph on the wall.95 On October 7, a German father clad in lederhosen exclaims to his hungry son, also clad in lederhosen, “Food? We Germans don’t eat food! We Germans eat countries!” The hardship of the German people is indicated in several ways. The plant on the windowsill is dying, and the stuffed head of an elk mounted on the wall has crosses in its eyes—it is twice dead. In the cartoon of the very next day, a Nazi radio broadcaster introduces “Colonel Schmaltz of the Gestapo” to speak “on his recent experiences in Norway.”96 Colonel Schmaltz is a skeleton. Like Dr. Seuss’s Mussolini, Colonel Schmaltz has crossed bandages on the side of his head, but here the bandages rest on his skull. On October 15, Dr. Seuss depicted a nonchalant Hitler “testing das new secret weapon for 1943...”—“Der Skids,” with an undersized Hitler hurtling uncontrollably downhill.97 Mid-October is very early to be predicting the military reverses that beset Hitler in the winter of 1942 and spring of 1943.
One month later, in “Slightly Diverted,” Dr. Seuss satirized the two-front war that Hitler was waging against the Soviet Union and in North Africa.98 As he parachutes into Tunisia, Hitler blithely reads a guidebook to Moscow and states to an incredulous fellow parachutist: “According to my book, boys, der Kremlin from here should be just around der corner!” Also in November Dr. Seuss had Hitler putting “Germany,” a figure strikingly different from Hitler in height and face and mustache, through two wringers: the “African wringer” and the “Russian wringer.”99 Indeed, by late 1942 German forces were in serious trouble both in the Soviet Union and in North Africa.
“I would like to take this opportunity to prophesy a white Christmas” (December 4, 1942) has Hitler getting the worst of the Russian winter.100 But once again Hitler is unaffected. December of 1942 marked the second winter German forces faced in the Soviet Union, and it was a winter fatal to their assault. In January, the Red Army penetrated the siege of Leningrad in the north, and in the south the German army occupying Stalingrad surrendered. Reverses or no, Dr. Seuss’s Hitler is rarely angry.
Dr. Seuss often drew Hitler with his allies. On July 20, 1942, Dr. Seuss depicted the execution of Jews.101 Hitler and the French wartime premier Pierre Laval sing from a piece of sheet music. From trees behind them hang the bodies of Jews. The lines of the song are a play on the final line of a then-famous poem by American poet Alfred Joyce Kilmer. His poem “Trees” opens with these lines, “I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree” and closes, “Poems are made by fools like me/But only God can make a tree.” This cartoon is puzzling for several reasons. First, why is Laval on a par with Hitler? Yes, the French regime collaborated with Germany in sending alien Jews and many French Jews to Auschwitz and other concentration camps beginning in March 1942; but is that reason enough to depict the music in Laval’s hands?
German persecution of Jews was general knowledge in July 1942, but the death camps—the first of which opened in December 1941—were not. The first credible reports of massive killings of Jews became public in Britain in June (see the Jewish Chronicle for June 19 and July 3), but they referred to Poland, not to France. Beginning in early August these reports circulated in the United States, but it was only after a press conference on November 24 in Washington, D. C., convened by Stephen S. Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, that the Nazi genocide became a subject of general discussion. Why are the cartoon’s corpses hanging from trees? There may be no specific incident to which this cartoon refers; Dr. Seuss may simply have conflated Hitler’s persecution of the Jews in Europe with the lynchings familiar to Americans. This is Dr. Seuss’s only cartoon dealing with Jewish deaths in Europe, but, as we have seen, he targeted anti-Semitism frequently.
Two weeks later Hitler dressed down his French ally, Pierre Laval, whom Dr. Seuss depicted as a louse spreading infection.102 And on December 17, 1942, Dr. Seuss produced one of his grimmest cartoons, about the rounding up of 400,000 French laborers to work in Germany.103 In this cartoon Hitler sits on a throne in a cave, amidst a pile of skulls, a Valkyrie-like helmet on his head and a sword across his lap, and orders Laval, a lizard-like creature with a very long tail: “Crawl Out and Round Me Up Another 400,000 Frenchmen!” The issue here is not genocide but forced labor; French laborers sent to Germany largely survived.
Hitler’s Italian ally Mussolini appears in October’s “Crisis in the High Command.”104 Hitler consults with his generals about what to do with his Italian ally. Because of defeats abroad and dissension at home, Mussolini was perennially a problem for his German ally, and the late months of 1942 were not a good time for either Hitler or Mussolini. But the truly precipitous decline in Mussolini’s fortunes came later, with the Allied invasion of Italy in the summer of 1943. Hitler’s general asks, “Should we send him to storage at I. J. Fox...?” (I. J. Fox was a famous furrier on New York’s fashionable Fifth Avenue.) Here we see five Germans, including Hitler. The generals all wear their hair in brush-cut fashion; as always, Hitler has his hair long and combed straight to the side. Still, even the generals are not carbon copies of each other. Three wear monocles; two have walrus mustaches, one has a brush mustache, one is clean-shaven. These generals are Prussian generals, not Nazis; Junkers, not Wehrmacht officers. Hence the image—except for Hitler and Mussolini, of course—is of World War I, not World War II. Do cartoonists, like stereotypical military strategists, always fight the last war?
This cartoon includes a visual puzzle (or perhaps a simple mistake?): for the two generals standing behind the table, there is only one set of booted legs under the table. Several viewers have concluded that the two generals are in fact one person caught in double view: first looking back at “Benito” and asking the first part of the question (note that the dots beneath the question lead directly down to his head) and then looking forward to finish the question to Hitler. But if so, Dr. Seuss is playing games with us, for despite the clear similarities, the two generals are almost a study in differences: the one in front has his monocle in his right eye, not his left, a mustache, no braid on his sleeve, a much larger iron cross, buttons on the inner ends of his epaulettes, a different collar and narrower sash.
But most often the ally depicted was a stereotyped “Japan.”138 The first of these appeared on June 13, 1941; we will consider it later in the context of Dr. Seuss’s representations of Japan. The Axis Alliance (established by the Tripartite Pact, September 27, 1940) linked Germany, Italy, and Japan. It committed all parties to come to the aid of each other against nations not then at war—a transparent reference to the United States. The actual collaboration between Berlin and Tokyo was far from complete: Berlin didn’t notify Tokyo of its plan in summer 1941 to attack the Soviet Union, and Tokyo didn’t tell Berlin of its plan to attack the United States. An October 19, 1941 cartoon finds Hitler and “Japan” bickering over who will push “Uncle Sam” over the other’s back.105 Note the eyes. Hitler’s eyes are shut—demurely? “Uncle Sam’s” eyes are shut in blithe disregard of imminent danger. “Japan’s” eyes are open, huge, and slanted grotesquely.
On December 19, 1941, just twelve days after Pearl Harbor, Dr. Seuss invoked his career as cartoonist for Esso’s Flit with a PM cover depicting Hitler, “Japan,” and Mussolini as insects; an angry Uncle Sam holds a Flit gun labeled “U. S. Defense Bonds and Stamps.”106 Hitler and “Japan” are far larger than Mussolini; note also Hitler’s swastika and “Japan’s” battle flag with the rays of the rising sun. This wasn’t the first time Dr. Seuss depicted the Axis partners as less than human. In May (as we saw in the previous chapter) a lobster, alligator, octopus, and shark—all wearing swastikas—lurked in the “old Family bath tub.” In June, Dr. Seuss employed kangaroos; earlier in December, the Japanese were depicted as cats.33 222 He also depicted conquered nations as performing seals or hunting trophies for Hitler.145 But given the purpose of Flit—extermination—this cartoon marks a change.85, 163 Its viciousness is tempered, perhaps, by the Flit campaign, which always included an element of whimsy. The first Flit cartoon showed a “medieval tenant” waking up to find a huge beast looming at the foot of his bed: “Darn it all, another Dragon. And just after I’d sprayed the whole castle with Flit!” For most readers of PM in 1941, “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” summoned up instantly that ad campaign, and that context may have softened what appears today a very harsh depiction. (The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough contains many pages of “Quick, Henry, the Flit!” cartoons, including this one.) As we shall see, Dr. Seuss went on to harsher depictions still, particularly of French premier Pierre Laval and “Japan.”
On December 30, 1941—after Pearl Harbor and after the German declaration of war on the United States—Dr. Seuss drew Hitler and “Japan” as street thugs who mugged “Uncle Sam.”107 In this cartoon, “Uncle Sam” reads “Rules for a Gentleman’s Conduct in Combat,” but bricks that appear to have just hit him on the head (one is “Pearl Harbor,” the other “Manila”) indicate that Hitler and “Japan” are anything but gentlemen. Hitler carries a third brick; “Japan” carries both cosh and knife. In these cartoons “Uncle Sam” is the innocent victim of German and Japanese attack.
Two days later (January 1, 1942), Hitler, Mussolini, and “Japan” appear as three snake-like beasts, nightmares in the New Year’s Day hangover of Uncle Sam.108 Indeed, on January 1, 1942 the Allied cause did not appear to be thriving.109 In mid-March 1942, Hitler and “Japan” size up “YOU + ME” for an Axis ball-and-chain. In May (“Giving the Axis a Lift”) Hitler and “Japan” ride along with a “U. S. Joy-Rider,” that is, a thoughtless consumer of crucial resources.110 The English is colloquial and flawless—“Step on it, kid; ya got gas and rubber to burn!”—but it is “Japan” whose mouth is open.
We will see further examples of Dr. Seuss’s Laval, Mussolini, and “Japan.” But let’s pause for a moment to consider Dr. Seuss’s caricature of Hitler. It is surely less evil-looking than we might expect. It may be that with four grandparents who had been born in Germany (of Protestant, not Jewish, parents), Dr. Seuss was simply unable to depict the German leader as more vicious. It may be that Dr. Seuss’s forte is the light touch and that fantasy—after all, Dr. Seuss counts himself the “world’s most outstanding writer of fantasy”—is inadequate to the task of portraying evil. Today’s overriding concern with the Nazi Holocaust may influence our reaction to all images of Hitler, even those of sixty years ago, before the world knew the full extent of the European Holocaust. Perhaps Dr. Seuss’s Hitler shows the influence of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, which came out in 1940. Chaplin bestrode the era (City Lights appeared in 1931, and Modern Times, in 1936), and Dr. Seuss would surely have known Chaplin’s buffoonish Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomania. As we shall see, there are also other Chaplinesque touches in the wartime cartoons, notably in Dr. Seuss’s depiction of the stereotypical common man in the derby that Chaplin’s tramp wore.
We’ll see other Hitler cartoons as we proceed, but we might note here that Dr. Seuss often uses a dachshund to represent Germany. Why not a German shepherd? Perhaps it’s too noble a dog, and Dr. Seuss needs an animal he can ridicule. Perhaps it’s the German name (the literal translation of dachshund is badger dog). We’ve seen two such dachshunds already, one the “perilously extended Reich” whose belly Hitler supports with a sling suspended from a fishing pole (June 5, 1942), the second cowering under the table as Hitler orders a spy to scout out hell (June 11, 1942).92 93 There are many others. In a stunning cartoon of May 1942, Laval is “the man who was SO LOW, he could walk under a Dachshund’s belly.”111 In July, Dr. Seuss proclaimed the absurd invention of Hitler’s dromedary dachsund.112 (This is the second of the two-part “With Adolf in Egypt” series.)
On November 24, 1942, Dr. Seuss showed Hitler before Stalingrad, deciding to switch into reverse—he sits on skis with a dachshund improbably positioned between Hitler and the skis.113 In the days before snowmobiles, Dr. Seuss was free to invent his own—powered by an outboard motor. An artillery shell has taken Hitler’s hat, and it’s not easy to figure out what the hind legs of the dachshund do; for that matter, what do the forelegs do? (The German army’s attempt to break Soviet resistance at Stalingrad fell victim to a Soviet counterattack that began November 19 and lasted until the German forces surrendered on January 21, 1943.) At Thanksgiving 1942, Dr. Seuss drew Laval atop a coat of arms of dachshunds rampant, asking, apparently of an American audience, “Did you have turkey at your house? I had Dachshund at mine.”114 The drawing is amazing: nineteen dachshunds (in one case, one head sits atop two bodies!), two swastika flags, twelve additional swastikas, five military hats. Laval stands atop a platter with a halo of sausages about his head. None of the dachshunds appears happy with his role; check particularly the four surrounding the large swastika at center bottom. But there are problems. It is Laval, not dachshund, on the platter. If anyone is getting consumed at Thanksgiving 1942, it is Laval and France, not Hitler’s Germany. It is a great drawing, but the caption is less than convincing.
December 16, 1942
One PM reader who shared his life with a dachshund wrote to the editor to protest Dr. Seuss’s slander of the breed: “If this insidious campaign continues, I am afraid people will begin to consider it their patriotic duty to kick my little darling around. And he wouldn’t understand; he doesn’t read the papers. I call this to your attention because I have always regarded PM as a champion of the rights of the underdog. And believe me, than the dachshund there is no dog more under.” In response, Dr. Seuss offered only a plea of no-contest: “Note to Mr. Holbrook’s dachshund: Sorry, friend. And if anyone kicks you around, sue me. You’ve got an excellent case. —Dr. Seuss.” But he appended a drawing that may have soothed Mr. Holbrook. In his profile of Dr. Seuss in the New Yorker (December 17, 1960), E. J. Kahn, Jr., states that after this incident Dr. Seuss “resolved never again to compete, artistically, with photographers and taxidermists.” Perhaps not in his war-time cartoons, but of course Dr. Seuss continued to “compete”: witness, in the postwar era, Horton of Horton Hears a Who or Thidwick of Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose.
Hitler is the prime subject of all of Dr. Seuss’s World War II cartoons. Without him, Dr. Seuss might well have remained a successful commercial artist with a sideline in children’s literature.
