'Verwehte Spüren', comic strip from Wacht im Westen, 13 March 1945.
Walter Hofmann was an early 20th-century German political cartoonist, who worked as Nazi propagandist during the 1930s and World War II. He signed many of his cartoons and picture stories with the pseudonym 'Von Waldl'. He should not be confused with Austrian graphic designer Walter Hofmann (1906-1975), nor with German librarian, graphic artist and poet Walter Hofmann (1879-1952).
Life and career
Walter Hofmann was born in 1905. In 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected as German chancellor. Slowly but surely he transformed the frail democratic country into a propaganda-driven, militaristic dictatorship. Hofmann was one of many young artists who drew Nazi propaganda, glorifying the new regime and condemning Communists and Jews. In 1937, Hofmann's book 'Lacht ihn Tot! Ein tendenziöses Bilderbuch' ('Laugh Yourself to Death! A Tendentious Picture Book', 1937) was released, a compilation of various political comics and cartoons.
In 1938, the Nazis stirred up people to incite violence against the Jewish population and vandalize their homes in an event that was nicknamed 'Kristallnacht'. Only 10 days after many people had been harrassed, vandalized, wounded and killed, a comic strip by Hoffmann ran in the local newspaper NS-Tageszeituing für Bautzen und Umbegung, titled 'Unser Geld!' ('Our Money!). The pantomime comic blames the Jewish community for "getting what they deserve" by depicting an average German citizen throughout the decades, with a five-year timespan between each panel. In the first panel we see the average "Fritz" in 1918, in chains, being forced to pay heavy reparation sums for losing the First World War. In 1933, when the Nazis take power, he breaks out of his chains and in 1938, now in Nazi uniform, he chases away the people who "robbed" him from his money, namely a group of caricaturally depicted Jews.
During World War II, Hofmann enthusiastically kept participating with the Nazi propaganda machine, contributing to magazines like Das Schwarze Korps and the army daily Wacht im Westen - Frontzeitung unserer Armee, a publication of the Propaganda Kompanie.
Walter Hofmann died in 1977.
'Verwehte Spüren', comic strip from Wacht im Westen, 13 March 1945.