Atlantik-Charta

Extremely rare German propaganda map mocking the morality of the Atlantic Charter, Churchill and Roosevelt's proposal for a post-war world after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The eight major points of the Atlantic Charter are each written out in German in their own text boxes, and each is surrounded by dark caricatures showing how either the Americans, the British, or both have gone against the values they claim to fight for.



Britain's colonial rule and genocidal policies in Africa, India, and Australia are placed alongside the Atlantic Charter points 3 & 8 which declare that all nations should refrain from using force for material or spiritual reasons and that all people should choose the government form under which they live. Meanwhile, America's coercive economic policies in South America and its treatment of the poor and minorities, particularly African-Americans, are illustrated to contradict Points 1 (our countries do not seek any enlargement, either territorial or economic) & 5 (all nations to work together to achieve better working conditions and social security).



Europe itself is missing entirely from the map, the blank space labelled only as "Unexplored Areas (Already Sold to Mr. J. Stalin)". Stalin also appears as the four heads of the wind rose blowing the Communist hammer and sickle in all directions. The Cape of Good Hope is amusingly labeled as "Das einzige Stückchen Hoffnung, das die Anglo-Amerikaner ihren Volkern zeigen konnen" [The only bit of hope Anglo-Americans can show their people].



The title cartouche shows the four fundamental freedoms proposed by Roosevelt in 1941 (freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear) as four agonized women, tied up, and standing on a pile of American and British bombs and guns. A gaunt American eagle and a wounded British lion sit below the title.



This map is particularly unusual in that it is reacting directly to a piece of "enemy" propaganda, the "Time & Tide Map of the Atlantic Charter" by Macdonald Gill. This is proven by the inclusion of Roosevelt and Churchill's signatures on the German map, copying those on Gill's map, which appear on no other printed propaganda that we have seen.



The map is printed using an unusual black-and-white printing technique, almost as if in negative. This is likely a result of a shortage of ordinary printing chemicals in Germany at this stage of the war, though it may also be that this part of the reproduction process.



We have not been able to locate any institutional copies of this map, nor are any listed on OCLC, suggesting that this is an extremely rare piece of wartime propaganda. We are aware of one even more unusual example of this map translated into Hungarian, but no other German examples.



[WLD4559]