“The Man Who Caught the Wildcat” (December 22, 1939)
By Bill Saylor
10 x 12 in., ink on drawing board
Coppola Collection

Bill Saylor was the editorial cartoonist at the Houston Post, was a Corporal in the Marines during WW2, and retired from the Houston Post in the late 70’s. I’ve had no luck tracking down too much else about him.

The Battle of Summa was fought between the Soviet Union and Finland, in two phases, first in December 1939 and then in February 1940. It was part of the “Winter War” and was fought near the village of Summa (now Soldatskoye) along the main road leading from Leningrad to Viipuri.

The village of Summa was a gateway to the city of Viipuri. The Finns had built 41 reinforced concrete bunkers in the Summa area, and the defense line was stronger than elsewhere in the Karelian Isthmus. However, the Finns had made mistakes in planning and nearby Munasuo swamp, east of Summa, had a kilometer-wide gap in the line. At least 20 tanks drove through the line in the first day of battle, but the Soviets did not have proper co-operation between branches of service; tanks, artillery and troops fought their own battles. The Finns stood still in trenches and allowed the Soviet tanks to move behind the defense line on December 19th, as they did not have proper anti-tank weapons. After that the Finns repelled the Soviet main troops. Soviet tanks cut-off behind the line aimlessly attacked Finnish strongpoints, but once these were eliminated the threat was over. The Finns won the battle on December 22.

“A Little Sad Music Before Passing the Hat” (December 15, 1939)
by Carey Orr (1980-1967)
12 x 15 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection

When the war broke out in September 1939, President Roosevelt wanted to provide assistance to the British. US law, and the prevailing isolationism that existed in the US after WWI and the still-present effects of the Great Depression, hindered any aid effort.

The Johnson Act of 1934 prohibited the extension of credit to countries that had not repaid US loans made to them during World War I, including Great Britain. The Neutrality Act of 1939 (March, following the German invasion of Czechoslovakia) allowed belligerents to purchase war materiel from the United States, but only on a “cash and carry” basis.

Internationalists, including the President, claimed that providing aid was a pro-active move that could prevent US participation in the war. Isolationists, including the military leadership, opposed diverting military supplies to the UK.

This debate was still raging when Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

This cartoon is pretty clear: a negative reaction to an accusation of European propaganda about the war as a way to solicit US aid. The cartoon only has the year on it, but there is evidence of public reports (and debates) about “the open secret that the countries facing off in the new war were employing propaganda to help their causes.” George Gallop, in a summary article, declared, “Propaganda has grown to be one of the most powerful weapons of modern warfare,” reporting from a poll from September 13-18, 1939.

Lydia Saad has a nice overview of this in her February 2, 2018 article from The Gallup Vault: “Propaganda and Fake News in 1939”

Thanks to JS for nailing the date on this one.

“Off!” (December 7, 1939)
by Lucius Curtis “Lute” Pease, Jr. (1869 -1963)
18 x 28 in, ink, pencil and chalk on board
Coppola Collection

Lucius Curtis Pease (March 27, 1869 – August 16, 1963), better known as Lute Pease, was an American editorial cartoonist and journalist with a lengthy career through the first half of the 20th century.

Born in Winnemucca, Nevada, Pease was raised by grandparents in Charlotte, Vermont from the age of five
after the death of his parents. He grew up to embark on an adventurous life. He worked for the Newark Evening News of Newark, New Jersey from 1914 to 1954. His papers are on file at the Huntington Library.

He won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.

There is only a short while, historically, where the Soviet Union is “on board” with the axis, and when Mussolini was still avowing a sense of neutrality.

On the one end, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a ten-year non-aggression pact, called the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, on August 24, 1939, with no consultation with Italy.The news has a devastating effect on the Italian fascists, who saw a core value in anti-communism. Italy was uninvolved when Poland was invaded later in August 1939. Mussolini declared “non-belligerence” as the war on Germany was declared, and tried to persuade Hitler against waging war through the first part of 1940.Hitler ignored him and moved forward with plans to conquer Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France, starting in May. So this honeymoon period between Germany and Russia, with the first conquests in hand, and with Italy preaching neutrality, sits between September 1939 and April 1940. In December, Russia was invading Finland and Italy was declaring its neutrality again (December 7).

Mussolini and Hitler meet at the Brenner pass in March 1940, which signals Italy’s intent to get into the war. Mussolini invaded Greece, in a famously disastrous strategic move in October 1940.

At the other end, Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

“If only Vincent Sheean could persuade the Czechs…” (November 28, 1939)
by Mischa Richter (1910-2001)
10 x 14 in., ink and wash on paper
Coppola Collection

November 1939 is less than three months after the Nazi invasion of Poland (September 1) that marks the start of WW2. This is not a drawing of the historical Hitler, monstrous with the insight of hindsight. To many in 1939, he is an authoritarian despot with still-secret ambition for world conquest, benefitting from the surprising non-aggression pact with Stalin (Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty, August 1939), the appeasement policy of British PM Chamberlain (“peace for our time”), and the radical isolationism of the US after WW1.
A despondent Hitler splays across a table and wonders “If only Vincent Sheean could persuade the Czechs that Communism and fascism are the same thing.”

Who is Vincent Sheean, and what is happening in Czechoslovakia?

In 1918, Vincent Sheean joined the Army with the intention of taking part in WW1, which ended before he served. He lived in Greenwich Village with left-wing figures who had reported on the 1917 Russian Revolution and the civil war that resulted in the rise of communism and the establishment of the USSR in 1923. In 1922 he visited Europe, settling in Paris where he became foreign correspondent.

Sheean published his autobiographical Personal History in 1935. The book tells the story of Sheean’s experiences of reporting on the rise of fascism in Europe. Sheean was highly critical of both Chamberlain and the US. His follow-up book, Not Peace but the Sword was published in March 1939, the same month that Czechoslovakia was invaded, and it was on the bookstands as a bestseller only weeks before the invasion of Poland on September 1. Both books focus on the rise of fascism in Germany, its parallel and at least sympathetic relationship with communism, and what he saw as a betrayal by England and France to not defend democracy more strongly.

Hitler annexed all of Austria without firing a single shot in March 1938. His next target, as had been laid out in Mein Kampf, was the possession of the Sudetenland, the part of Czechoslovakia where millions of ethnic Germans lived.

Journalists rushed into Prague, capital city of the Czech Republic, to report on the drama that unfolded over the following months. Among those who came to observe and report: Vincent Sheean. Sheean reported on September 21, 1938, having spent the day in the Sudetenland, that loud speakers posted throughout the city had just announced to the Czechs that under pressure from London and Paris, the government had accepted the German dictator’s demand for a revision of the two countries’ border.

Chamberlain (September 1938): “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.”

Chamberlain is frequently misquoted as “peace in our time.”

On March 15, Hitler threatened a bombing raid against Prague unless he got free passage for German troops into Czech borders. He got it. By evening, Hitler made his entry into Prague.

Another easy conquest, with the stage set for his move on Poland. The secret terms of the August 30, 1939 non-aggression pact with Stalin (Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty) outlined how Czechoslovakia and Poland would be divided between Germany and Russia, giving the Nazis their opening to invade Poland.

Hitler bamboozles England and France with promises of peace. On October 28, thousands of people, mainly students, mark the 21st anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia. The Nazis retaliate by closing universities, executing student leaders and making arrests. On November 17, Germans attacked and arrested thousands of students, sending many to concentration camps. Nazis executed nine Czechs by firing squad without trial for leading the demonstrations. On November 18, the Nazis closed all the technical schools.

Today, International Students’ Day is observed on November 17. The year 2019 marks the 80th anniversary.

Richter’s cartoon expresses anxiety by Hitler on how things are going in Czechoslovakia. It might have looked like he was getting pushback from the Czechs, but we know in retrospect that the Nazis had the situation in hand.

And 2019 is also the 80th anniversary of Marvel comics (Marvel Comics #1 was published in October 1939). In the 2015 movie, Age of Ultron, Tony Stark explicitly and ironically uses the “peace in our time” phrase as something that could now be possible, as it was not before, because of the protective Ultron protocol he wants to put in place around the earth following the alien invasion seen in the first Avengers movie. Stark’s dialog: “peace in our time, imagine that.” His naïve arrogance inspires the now-sentient Ultron to repeat the quote, which is played back after Ultron takes a look at the madness of human history, as a mandate to exterminate human life as the only pathway to peace.

“Propaganda” (October 26, 1939)
by Emidio (Mike) Angelo (1903-1990)
13 x 13.5 in., ink on art board
Coppola Collection

Emidio Angelo was born in Philadelphia, a year after his mother and father, a baker, arrived from Italy. He studied art from 1924 to 1928 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Angelo joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as a political cartoonist in 1937 and worked there until 1954. He also drew cartoons for the Saturday Evening Post, Life and Esquire.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. To justify the action, Nazi propagandists falsely claimed that Poland had been planning, with its allies Great Britain and France, to encircle and dismember Germany and that Poles were persecuting ethnic Germans. The SS, in collusion with the German military, staged a phony Polish attack on a German radio station. Hitler then used this action to launch a “retaliatory” campaign against Poland.

Like all clever propagandists, Hitler sought to mask his true intentions by appealing to the moral high ground. He understood that many, if not most, Germans did not want to go to war again; World War I had cost the nation some 2 million dead. And indeed there was no uproar of enthusiasm when German troops invaded Poland. What made it palatable to the civilian population was to paint Germany as the victim of foreign machinations and violence. By staging the phony attacks on the German borders, the Nazis provided “proof” of their victimhood and used it in tandem with the claim that Germany was encircled by enemies in the east and west. To further preserve Germany’s image as the victim, the Propaganda Ministry directed the German press not to refer to the invasion of Poland as war, but only as a military intervention.

In October 1939, Germany directly annexed former Polish territories along German’s eastern border: West Prussia, Poznan, Upper Silesia, and the former Free City of Danzig.

On October 6, Hitler addressed a special session of the Reichstag. After speaking at great length about the victory over Poland he then proposed an international security conference, hinting at desire for an armistice by saying that such a conference would be impossible “while cannons are thundering.” Britain and France rejected these overtures some days later and the uneventful phase of the war known as the Phoney War would drag on until May 10, 1940 (when Germany invaded Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and Churchill replaced Chamberlain).

A Gallup poll was published in the United States asking, “What should be the policy in the present European war? Should we declare war and send our army and navy abroad to fight Germany?” 95% of Americans polled said no.

“The Boys May Get a Real Fight Started Yet” (October 17, 1939)
unattributed
11 x 15 in, ink on board
Coppola Collection

The “Phoney War” was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany’s Saar district. The Phoney period began with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939 and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on May 10, 1940.

The period of inactivity of the French and British troops was used by the Wehrmacht for the occupation of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Poland. In the Saar Offensive in September, the French attacked Germany with the intention of assisting Poland, but it fizzled out within days and they withdrew.

1939.10.13 “I Have Never Seen a Game Like This” (October 13, 1939)
by Jack Patton (1900-1962)
12 x 14 in., ink and crayon on board
Coppola Collection

Jack Patton was originally from Louisiana. He worked as an editorial cartoonist from the 1910s through the 1930s. In the 1930s, he was a widely read editorial cartoonist for The Dallas Morning News. His last editorial cartoons appeared at the end 1939 and perhaps through the start of 1940. During the 1930s, he also began the newspaper strip ‘Restless Age,’ which was followed by ‘Spence Easley’.

As a child, Patton read a magazine advertisement offering easy lessons in drawing. He signed up for a brief course, and it was enough to whet his appetite for a lifetime of cartooning. Scraping together enough money to get to Chicago, he enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts. While at the school, he received word that the old Dallas Journal, then the evening publication of The Dallas News, needed an assistant in the art department. Hurrying back to his hometown, Mr. Patton found to his delight that he would work with veteran News cartoonist John Knott. The year was 1918 and two years later his editorial cartoons won a place on page 1 of the Journal. In the early part of his career, Mr. Patton was one of the first men in the business to put out both an editorial cartoon and a comic strip daily. The editorial cartoons had a stinging wit, and the originals were frequently requested by the subjects, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover and John Nance Garner.

The Maginot Line is a strong of concrete fortifications, obstacles and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications. The Maginot Line was impervious to most forms of attack. In consequence, the Germans invaded through the Low Countries in 1940, passing it to the north. The line, which was supposed to be fully extended further towards the west to avoid such an occurrence, was finally scaled back in response to demands from Belgium. Indeed, Belgium feared it would be sacrificed in the event of another German invasion. The line has since become a metaphor for expensive efforts that offer a false sense of security.

The Siegfried Line, known in German as the Westwall, was a German defensive line built during the 1930s opposite the French Maginot Line. The Siegfried Line was a World War II German defensive system stretching some 390 miles along the western border of the old German Empire and referred to as the Westwall by the Germans.

Despite France’s declaration of war on Germany (September 3, 1939) after Germany had invaded Poland three days earlier, there was no major combat at the Siegfried Line except for a minor offensive by the French. Instead, both sides remained stuck in the so-called Phoney War (September 1939 through April 1940), where neither side attacked the other and both stayed in their safe positions.

The Saar Offensive was a French invasion of Saarland, Germany from September 7-16, 1939. When the swift victory in Poland allowed Germany to reinforce its lines with homecoming troops, the offensive was halted. The French opted to fight a defensive war, forcing the Germans to come to them. French General Maurice Gamelin ordered his troops to stop no closer than 1 km from the German positions along the Siegfried Line. At the same time, French divisions were ordered to withdraw to their barracks along the Maginot Line, beginning the Phoney War.

The World War II German invasion plan of France for May 1940, following its capture of Norway (ending the phoney war) was designed to deal with the line. A decoy force sat opposite the line while a second Army Group cut through the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as through the Ardennes Forest, which lay north of the main French defenses. Thus the Germans were able to avoid a direct assault on the Maginot Line by violating the neutrality of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Attacking on May 10, German forces were well into France within five days and they continued to advance until May 24, when they stopped near Dunkirk.

“You Gotta Stop Picking on Me!” (October 9, 1939)
by Emidio (Mike) Angelo (1903-1990)
18 x 18 in., ink on art board
Coppola Collection

Emidio Angelo was born in Philadelphia, a year after his mother and father, a baker, arrived from Italy. He studied art from 1924 to 1928 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Angelo joined The Philadelphia Inquirer as a political cartoonist in 1937 and worked there until 1954. He also drew cartoons for the Saturday Evening Post, Life and Esquire.

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland.

On October 4, 1939, Adolf Hitler issued a secret decree granting an amnesty to all crimes committed by German military and police personnel in Poland between September 1 and October 4. The decree justified the crimes as being natural responses to “atrocities committed by the Poles.

On October 5, 1939, Hitler flew to Warsaw and reviewed a victory parade in the fallen Polish capital.

On October 6, 1939, Hitler addressed a special session of the Reichstag. After speaking at great length about the victory over Poland he then proposed an international security conference, hinting at desire for an armistice by saying that such a conference would be impossible “while cannons are thundering.”

And there is the context for this view of Germany’s two-faced relationship with the truth. The public face of Germany’s actions was so guided and calculated as to appear uneventful, birthing the notion that these first 8 months or so of WW2 were called The Phoney War (until the European invasion on May 10, 1940).

On October 12, 1939, the regions of Nazi-occupied Poland not annexed by the Reich were incorporated into a new administrative unit called the General Government.

“Innocents Abroad” (September 28, 1939)
by Paul Albert Plaschke (1880 – 1954)
12 x 15 in., ink and charcoal on paper
Coppola Collection

Paul Plaschke was a cartoonist of German origin, known for his contributions to the Evening Post, Louisville Times and Courier-Journal newspapers through the 1920s and to the Herald Examiner and the Chicago Tribune in the 1930s.

Historians report that the Treaty of Versailles (1919), brokering the peace at the end of WWI, caused significant resentment in Germany, and that Hitler played off of this to achieve power. The British government believed that Hitler and Germany had some genuine grievances, but that if these could be met (‘appeased’) Hitler would be satisfied and become less demanding.

Becoming Chancellor in 1933, Hitler began to re-arm the country, breaking the Versailles restrictions. In March 1938, he annexed Austria. Czechoslovakia was next.

In September 1938, British PM Neville Chamberlain returned from Germany, having signed the Munich Agreement, and famously, publically, and ultimately ironically declared “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.”

German forces moved in and occupied a significant chunk of Czechoslovakia on October 1. Six months later, all of Czechoslovakia was taken over. Poland was next.

Chamberlain made an agreement with the Poles to defend them if Germany invaded. But Hitler did not think Britain would go to war over Poland, having failed to do so over Czechoslovakia.

Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact with the USSR on August 23, 1939, which included a secret plan to divide Poland between them.

Hitler sent troops into Poland on September 1-3, 1939, claiming it was a defensive action. On August 31, Nazi troops wearing Polish uniforms staged a phony invasion of Germany, damaging several minor installations on the German side of the border. They also left behind a handful of dead concentration camp prisoners in Polish uniforms to serve as further evidence of the supposed Polish invasion, which Nazi propagandists publicized as an act of aggression.

On September 3, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and France declared war on Germany, which is generally regardless as the start of WWII.

By September 28, 1939, the day this cartoon was published, Poland had fallen and Germany and the USSR concluded their agreement, outlining their zones of occupation.

Over two more years would pass before US isolationism would be broken by the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.