“Crusader” (October 28, 1941)
by John Francis Knott (1878 – 1963)
8 x 16 in., pencil on board
Coppola Collection

Knott started working at the Dallas News as an artist in 1905 and achieved national prominence for his World War I and Woodrow Wilson era cartoons. He had a 50-year career with the Dallas News and created more than 50,000 cartoons. Texas newspapers widely acknowledged that Knott helped increase the sales of Liberty Bonds and donations to agencies involved in the war effort.

By mid-1941, the Nazis were moving into the Soviet Union from Europe (Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941). Here is an excerpt from two speeches given in late 1941 and early 1942 that specifically mention protecting Europe from Bolshevism:

“Didn’t the world see, carried on right into the Middle Ages, the same old system of martyrs, tortures, faggots? Of old, it was in the name of Christianity. To-day, it’s in the name of Bolshevism. Yesterday, the instigator was Saul: the instigator to-day, Mardochai. Saul has changed into St. Paul, and Mardochai into Karl Marx. By exterminating this pest [Bolshevism], we shall do humanity a service of which our soldiers can have no idea.”

21 October 1941

But I think that if Providence has already disposed that I can do what must be done according to the inscrutable will of the Providence, then I can at least just ask Providence to entrust to me the burden of this war, to load it on me…. Thus the home-front need not be warned, and the prayer of this priest of the devil, the wish that Europe may be punished with Bolshevism, will not be fulfilled, but rather that the prayer may be fulfilled: “Lord God, give us the strength that we may retain our liberty for our children and our children’s children, not only for ourselves but also for the other peoples of Europe, for this is a war which we all wage, this time, not for our German people alone, it is a war for all of Europe and with it, in the long run, for all of mankind.”

Speech in Berlin 30 January 1942

“Hit and Muss” (October 21, 1941)
by Vaughn Richard Shoemaker (1902-1991)
22 x 24 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

The name on the boat is important.

In 1937, cartoonist Sir David Alexander Cecil Low (1891–1963) had produced an occasional strip about “Hit and Muss” (Hitler and Mussolini), but after Germany made official complaints he substituted a composite dictator, “Muzzler.” Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels told British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax that British political cartoons, particularly those of Low’s, were damaging Anglo-German relations.

I am not sure if depicting the three Axis leaders together was common before the Tripartite Agreement (September 1940), so if this cartoon came this late, it might be in homage to Low from a fellow cartoonist (Shoemaker to Low: you were right…).

It is reasonable that this pre-dates the entry of the US into the war in December, 1941, as these three “fishing” for world domination (as a commentary) would be stronger during the time that they were saying (in public) that Eurasia was their only target.

“That Damocles Urge” (October 15, 1941)
by Edward Scott “Ted” Brown (1876-1942)
18 x 13 in., ink on paper
Coppola Collection

Ted Brown, who spent his early years chasing the Alaska gold rush of 1898, returned to the US with no gold score and was a longtime editorial cartoonist for the New York Herald-Tribune, supplanting Jay N. (Ding) Darling in that position. This cartoon, titled “That Damocles Urge”, appeared on October 15, 1941, and features Hitler attempting to plow towards Moscow, with the Damocles Sword of Russian Winter hanging over his head. As is typical of Brown’s work, it is filled with wonderful pen work, especially the activity of his line. The drawing has an almost animated feel about it.

Brown took ill in mid-1942 and died in late December.

The winter climate contributed to the military failures of several invasions of Russia, including (and perhaps particularly) Operation Barbarossa (meaning “Red Beard, named by Hitler to honor of German ruler Frederick I, nicknamed Red Beard, who had orchestrated a ruthless attack on the Slavic peoples of the East some eight centuries earlier), the Nazi attack on their Soviet ally – a bold grab for territory by the Reich.

In Operation Barbarossa, Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941: their largest military operation of World War II. The Germans pushed hard; the Soviets pushed back. The plan, to take Moscow by the end of summer, was delayed, and so the Nazis first got bogged down (literally) during the heavy autumn rains (the “rasputitsa,” or “General Mud”). Loaded vehicles and marching men were now relying on horse-drawn wagons for support.

By mid-October, this cartoon makes it clear that the challenges faced by the German army were well known, and that the impending problems from the onset of winter were approaching fast.

The Nazis did not end up making it to Moscow until December. And December 6, 1941, the Soviet Union launched a major counterattack, driving the Germans back from Moscow.

“Wake Up America” (September 30, 1941)
by Bill Crawford (1913-1982)
22″ x 18″; ink and crayon on heavy paper
Coppola Collection

A frequent contributor to the sport’s page, Crawford’s editorial cartoons often mixed the effect of WWII on professional sports issues.

Crawford did a number of pro-war “Wake the hell up, America!” cartoons, like this one, that took the US isolationism to task.

Public opinion swung way towards keeping out of it during the first few years.

Sept 1939 (Germany invades Poland): 42% yes, 48% no
Oct 1939 (Poland conquered): 29% yes; 71% no
May 1940 (German invades Netherlands, Belgium, France): 7% yes, 93% no
June 1940 (Paris is taken): 35% yes, 61% no
September 1940 (draft instated; help UK or not?): 52% help, 44% no
November 1940 (FDR elected 3rd term; help UK or not?): 60% yes, 40% no
March 1941 (Lend-Lease starts; help UK or not?): 67% yes, 33% no
June 1941 (German attacks Russia; help UK?): 62% yes, 33% no
September 1941 (Germans attack US ship; help UK?) 64% yes, 30% no
November 1941 (Talks with Japan fail; help UK?) 68% yes, 28% no
December 1941 (Pearl Harbor) 91% yes, 7% no

“What are the odds?” (September 30, 1941)
by Charles (Chuck) Werner (1909-1997)
13.5 x 17.5 in., ink and crayon on textured paper

Charles (Chuck) Werner won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1939 for a cartoon he did for the Daily Oklahoman titled “Nomination for 1938” which allowed for the transfer of the Sudetenland to Hitler’s Germany (October 6, 1938). At age 29, Werner was the youngest person to win the Pulitzer. Werner left the Daily Oklahoman to be the Chief Editorial Cartoonist at the Chicago Sun in 1941 before leaving for the Indianapolis Star in 1947. Throughout his nearly sixty-year career, many U.S. Presidents expressed interest in Werner’s cartoons, including Lyndon B. Johnson and Harry Truman requesting cartoons for their presidential libraries.

There is a period of time where there are three players making war, and when the US is not even formally involved. On September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland and WW2 begins. The Soviets have a pact with the Germans, and take a piece of Poland (September), then Finland (Dec 1939 – March 1940), and the Baltics (June 1940, the same month that Germany takes France). Great Britain was carrying the weight of the Allied resistance.

Hitler turned on Stalin in June 1941, and the Soviets were now third party warriors, not aligned with the Allies but counting on their success.

From September 29 to October 1, 1941, the first Moscow conference was held.

Stalin told British diplomats that he wanted two agreements: (1) a mutual assistance/aid pact and (2) a recognition that, after the war, the Soviet Union would gain the territories in countries that it had taken pursuant to its division of Eastern Europe with Hitler in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The British agreed to assistance but refused to agree to the territorial gains, leading to the rocky view of peace represented in this cartoon.

Two months later, Pearl Harbor was attacked, bringing the US into the fray.

“No Harm Can Come to Thee” (September 24, 1941)
By Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
15 x 22 in., ink on board

Ralph Lee was an editorial cartoonist for the Portland Oregonian. He died suddenly, at 41, in January 1947. His cousin, Art Bimrose, was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. Following Lee’s death, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist.

Still entrenched in isolationism just 3 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Senator Burton Wheeler sings a soothing and ineffective lullaby to Uncle Sam, who sees the nearby peril of Adolph Hitler, peering in. An ardent New Deal liberal until 1937, Wheeler broke with FDR on the issue of packing the United States Supreme Court. In foreign policy, he became a leader of the non-interventionist wing of the party, fighting against entry into World War II.

“More Hairpins that the Burma Road” (September 10, 1941)
by Lucius Curtis Pease (1869 -1963)
18 x 28 in, ink, pencil and chalk on board
Coppola Collection

This is a challenging cartoon to date. It depicts a still-open Burma Road and (rocky) negotiations happening between Japan and the US. After Pearl Harbor, there were no peace overtures, so I say this is pre-war.

The Burma Road was built during the Second Sino-Japanese War, during 1937-38 1938. After the bombing of a USS ship on the Yangtze River in December 1937, the US and its allies began sending assistance to China. The British used the road, famously depicted as a series of hairpin turns up a steep slope, to transport materiel to China before Japan was at war with the British, and the US used the Burma Road to transport Lend-Lease (March 1941) materiel to the Chinese. The Japanese overran Burma in 1942.

Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy on September 27, 1940 thereby linking the conflicts in Europe and Asia. Then in mid-1941, Japan signed a Neutrality Pact with the Soviet Union. The Japanese continued their aggression in SE Asia, and the US began taking preventative measures. We halted negotiations with Japanese diplomats, instituted a full embargo on exports to Japan, particularly steel and oil, froze Japanese assets in U.S. banks, and sent supplies into China along the Burma Road.

Although negotiations restarted after the United States increasingly enforced its embargo against Japan, they made little headway. Diplomats in Washington came close to agreements on a couple of occasions, but pro-Chinese sentiments in the United States made it difficult to reach any resolution that would not involve a Japanese withdrawal from China, and such a condition was unacceptable to Japan’s military leaders.

In autumn of 1941, President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye, and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew were on the verge of arranging a meeting in Alaska, but the parties could not come to an agreement on terms.

Faced with serious shortages as a result of the embargo, unable to retreat, and convinced that the US officials opposed further negotiations, Japan’s leaders came to the conclusion that they had to act swiftly. US leaders doubted that Japan had the military strength to attack US territory. On December 7, 1941, in an attempt to goad the US into lifting its sanctions, the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor was attacked.

“A Reasonable Amount of Fleas…” (August 22, 1941)
By Bert Thomas (1883-1966)
12 x 16 in, ink on board

Bert Thomas was a wonderful British cartoonist and longtime contributor to Punch magazine (1905-1935). Thomas gained his initial popularity during WWI, with a well-known cartoon that raised 250,000 pounds sterling in aid for British soldiers.

There is only a relatively short period of time when the Soviets were aligned with the Allies and the US was still on the sidelines of WW2, driven by the lingering isolationist policy prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

As Europe moved closer to war in the late 1930s, the US Congress continued to demand American neutrality, even though FDR, at this point, was leaning towards the responsibility that the US might have. By 1937, Congress had passed the Neutrality Acts (for example, Americans could not sail on ships flying the flag of a belligerent nation or trade arms with warring nations).

Things were changing by 1941. In early 1941, FDR managed to get the Lend-Lease Act, which enabled the US to provide arms and munitions to the Allies. American public opinion supported Roosevelt’s actions. The Russians, who had been aligned with the Germans from just before the 1939 invasion of Poland, became a target of Hilter’s interest with a June 22, 1941 invasion of Russia, and a quick turnaround in Stalin’s belief that the Allies could, in fact, prevail.

The US involvement and general sympathies were shifting quickly. Attacks on the US were harder to ignore. On October 31, the USS Reuben James, for example, was torpedoed and sunk near Iceland. By late 1941, 72% of Americans agreed that “the biggest job facing this country today is to help defeat the Nazi Government,” and 70% thought that defeating Germany was more important than staying out of the war. And in December: Pearl Harbor.

“Seein’ Stars” (July 21, 1941)
by Frederic Seymour “Fred” or “Feg” Murray (1894-1973)
11 x 14 in., ink on board

A bronze medalist from the 1920 Olympics, Murray became a sports and “Hollywood gossip” cartoonist. The “Seein’ Stars” feature ran daily from 1933-1941, although the Sunday strip continued to 1951. My two examples are lined up with my WW2 interests. This one features an actor who plays Hitler, the other an actor who plays Hirohito.

This edition recounts the travails of an actor who played Hitler in a movie called “Man Hunt.” Carl Ekberg (1903-1976) was typecast as Hitler, which must have been internal information as he only ever acted in uncredited roles. The first time he played Der Fuhrer was in the movie referenced here (“Man Hunt,” June 1941 release), and then again in “Citizen Kane” (September 1941 release), which, all things considered, is pretty cool. He portrayed Hitler twice again in 1942 (“The Wife Takes a Flyer” and “Once Upon a Honeymoon”), and German soldiers 15 more times between 1943-48. That was it for his filmography until he played Hitler one more uncredited time in 1966 (“What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?”).