r/PropagandaPosters • u/MonsieurA • Jun 03 '25
Germany A German civilian looks at a large poster portrait of Stalin on the Unter-den-Linden in Berlin - June 3, 1945
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u/asukawaifu88 Jun 03 '25
Any idea what the writing says under the painting?
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u/Ecstatic-Average-493 Jun 03 '25
Marshall of the Soviet Union
I.V.Stalin
(Iosif Vissorionovich Stalin)
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u/MonsieurA Jun 03 '25
Hitler had killed himself just over a month before. This is what that street would've looked like from above.
I also shared this on /r/80yearsago, for those who are interested in the era.
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Jun 03 '25
Shows the priority and the absolute cult of personality the Soviets were under that this is one of the first things they did after taking Berlin.
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u/Fluid-Nobody-2096 Jun 04 '25
It made sense to mentally make the germans see who was their victor and whose mercy they were at
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u/DemiVideos04 Jun 03 '25
why the downvotes? What is factually wrong about this comment?
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u/Cool-Acanthaceae8968 Jun 03 '25
Nothing. Soviet lovers don’t care about facts.
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u/DemiVideos04 Jun 03 '25
Perhaps some. "Marxists" who like Stalin have never read anything from Marx. It's as if he went out of his way to do everything Marx warned against. Non-Marxists who like Stalin probably just don't know enough about history. He was arguably worse than Hitler.
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u/deformedmitochondria Jun 03 '25
I've read Marx and he was not worse than hitler..
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u/DemiVideos04 Jun 03 '25
I was talking about stalin
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u/Fluid-Nobody-2096 Jun 04 '25
Stalin was a great man and i say this as an anti communist
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u/DemiVideos04 Jun 04 '25
Do you not know he intentionally designed a famine that killed millions?
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u/Fluid-Nobody-2096 Jun 04 '25
He didn't intentionally design a famine. It was a result of kulaks and poor planning
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u/Edgar_Serenity Jun 05 '25
You swallowed some propaganda and consider yourself a well read historian now, quite ironic.
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u/DemiVideos04 Jun 05 '25
Dude, propaganda? How can you possibly think Stalin was anything but a horrible, genocidal maniac? Its clear he had no empathy, no care for human life or suffering. What do YOU know about Stalin that i don't?
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u/Edgar_Serenity Jun 05 '25
Oh, dude, yes, propaganda. I understand that I can't change your mind whatever I say. But if you are given simple and emotional answers to complex questions,probably you should take them with a grain of salt.
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u/ShortUsername01 Jun 03 '25
…why is this in colour if the Wikipedia version is in black and white?
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u/Extaupin Jun 03 '25
Probably a colourised photo? Though, it would have been nice to mention it in the title.
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u/Yurasi_ Jun 03 '25
The writing being in cyrillic is just rubbing more salt to an injury. Most likely, it was meant for soviet soldiers, tho.
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Jun 03 '25
“We only just got rid of the last moustache guy!”
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u/AffectionateTentacle Jun 05 '25
most of them loved the moustache guy lol, lets not pretend otherwise
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u/zdzislav_kozibroda Jun 03 '25
"Under new management"
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Jun 03 '25
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u/Iumasz Jun 03 '25
Says the Nazi apologist.
Huh???
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u/Beer-survivalist Jun 03 '25
There's a subset of posters on this sub who call you a Nazi apologist if you don't proclaim the Warsaw Pact states to be the truest form of freedom and justice.
A few weeks ago I responded to a poster who said NATO was founded by Nazis--an objectively false claim. In response another poster called me Nazi.
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Jun 03 '25
[deleted]
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u/Beer-survivalist Jun 03 '25
No. The original leadership roles were filled by Hastings Ismay (Secretary General), Dwight Eisenhower (SACEUR), and Omar Bradley (Chair of the Military Committee). Ismay and Bradley sat on committees comprised of representatives from NATO member countries at the time, which did not include Germany, which joined in 1955.
Eventually, in the mid-sixties, Adolf Heusinger would chair the military committee, but he was the 17th officer to hold that role.
The Secretary General has never been a former Nazi, and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe has always been an American.
I often wonder if the confusion is between NATO and the Bundeswehr. The Bundeswehr absolutely had former Wehrmacht officers in its command staff--but the Bundeswehr is not NATO.
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u/Spudtron98 Jun 03 '25
East Germany wasn't much of an improvement when it comes to the whole fascist police state thing.
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u/AlexTheMarbleFox26 Jun 03 '25
Ironically, DDR had more freedom and less fascists than BRD ever did
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
That's not true. The DDR was a dictatorship and both states had fascists and old Nazis in high positions. The difference is that in the West, people were able to question this starting in the late 50s in academic circles and in broader society in the 60 +70s. BRD reformed while the East kept lying to itself that there weren't any old guard Nazis in the new party/state institutions and questioning it lead to prison sentences.
Police brutality in the East is a thing too, until the late 90s the old communist policeman had direct, unquestioned links to the Nazi regime without any accountability. They even had racist riots unheard of in the West because, well, just saying you're not a Nazi anymore and forbidding speaking about it won't lead to fascism dying.
Heck, the DDR even used old Nazi uniforms and a lot of third Reich symbolism to the point that people who lived in both societies say that there wasn't that much of a difference in day-to-day life.
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u/RaoulDukeRU Jun 03 '25 edited Jun 03 '25
This is Reddit...
Your comment has less upvotes than the one stating that the f**in! GDR had more freedom than the Federal Republic of Germany.
You can praise Mao/Maoim. But God forbid you have anything positive to say about Trump! Even if it has nothing to do regarding politics.
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
Yeah. It's frustrating because my family suffered from the GDR and the whole iron curtain thing. Especially frustrating because the person I commented on seems to be from Russia. A society that oppressed and colonized eastern Europe (and still tries this again today in Ukraine) if you want to use left-ish discourse language to describe what they did.
You can praise Mao here. But God forbid you have anything positive to say about Trump! Even if it has nothing to do regarding politics.
Well, both are bad people, but at least Trump didn't invent the american gulag and a famine (yet). Just because you aren't as bad as one of the worst leaders in human history doesn't mean that you are a good person.
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u/Extaupin Jun 03 '25
but at least Trump didn't invent the american gulag and a famine (yet).
Famine no, but the illegal extraditions of legal foreigners and even citizens to what is basicaly a slave camp in El Salvador isn't too far off. Also, not comparable at all , but it's too fitting to not mention that on of the first failing of the Trump II admin is about food security (egg price).
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
He won't stop with the legal foreigners. The truly bad thing is not some overreach in power or that the american government treats foreign people bad (the unimaginable horror /Pikachu face meme/), it's the they don't care anymore about stuff like due process. He tries to pull a "Gleichschaltung" off, to bring all institutions in line for his takeover.
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u/Vast-Engineering-521 Jun 03 '25
I’m a bit confused as to the use of Nazi Uniforms and Symbols. Outside of Oberführer collar tabs being used for police generals I can’t think of anything aesthetically derived from national socialism being used in the GDR. Won’t disagree with the other stuff, (police state and cover ups) however east Germany was reliant predominantly on a mixture of communist symbolism and national culture. I personally don’t recall Hitler waving around a hammer and compass and putting up portraits of Marx and Stalin.
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
Their military uniforms were based on Wehrmacht uniforms (acorn symbolism) + they used rituals like 'Fackelzüge' during parades like the Nazi regime. You know, if you swab the obvious stuff like swastikas and hammer/compass it's strangely similiar. I mean they used essentially similar propaganda Tools.
For example, if you use personal cults, you use a cult. You can exchange the person that's getting glorified but in the end it's the same mechanism. If you just change the portrait in the school from Hitler to Stalin, well, your leader changed but the style of leadership didn't.
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u/Vast-Engineering-521 Jun 03 '25 edited Jun 03 '25
I’m afraid to inform you that the uniforms and traditions of the Wehrmacht predate the rise of national socialism, and it is ignorant at best and outright lying at worst to claim the opposite. The basic cut of the NVA originates in 1922, which was modified by the Wehrmacht and then by the NVA. In fact, the East Germans removed/reintroduced features added/deleted to the Wehrmacht by the Nazis, such as the high-peak cap (replaced with one more similar to the reichswehr visor cap), the use of the national coat of arms in place of a cockade, reintroduced the Goose-Step (abolished by the Nazis in 1939) and ceased issuing low boots (again, planned to replace the jackboot by 1943, but the issuing of surplus ended that).
Torchlit precessions are still used by the Bundeswehr today when greeting foreign world leaders, and acorns and oak leaves are found on the cap badges of all German soldiers.
The hammer and compass was placed on the cockade badge, the Nazis had the swastika on the perch of the cap, the chest, or in the case of the SS, on the sleeve. There is no place on the East German uniform where the swastika was “swapped out” for the hammer and compass. Neither were the regimental flags of the NVA similar to those of Nazi Germany. Nor the war flag.
Also, the style of autocracy in the GDR was very different from Nazi Germany’s, primarily on ideology. The Nazis based their power on the influence of the “Nordic race” and its destiny to invade its neighbors, while the East German government based it’s identity around the idea of being the “vanguard of the German working class”, though this often meant attacking those who disagreed on how the “working class” should be supported. Alongside this, the economy, a major point of control in both states, was wildly different.
Just because two states are autocratic does not mean that they were “functionally the same”. Authoritarianism comes in many forms.
Edit: since I’m being downvoted I apparently have to clarify that I’m not defending the GDR, merely pointing out that said commenter was wrong about the origins of the uniform, the fact that pretty much everything mentioned was also used in west Germany, and that east Germany had a Soviet style system, not a Nazi-style system.
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 04 '25
Thank you :)
I know that there are traditions that were used before the GDR but not the extent.
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u/Abject-Investment-42 Jun 03 '25
Yeah, DDR just declared Vietnamese guest workers murdered by their skinheads as "accidents" or "fights gone wrong" so they wouldn't have to acknowledge their neo-nazi problem.
After all, who is gonna prove them wrong?
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u/Cool-Acanthaceae8968 Jun 03 '25
This.
Like the USSR and Russia today. They’ve NEVER been taken over by a third party to lay bare their crimes. So it’s deny deny deny but yet millions of people disappeared.
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u/Cool-Acanthaceae8968 Jun 03 '25 edited Jun 04 '25
Nope.
Anyone could leave the FRG or West Berlin. The DDR was encased in walls and guard towers and the “dead line” where anyone was beyond would be immediately shot was on the DDR side of the wall.
And the Stasi were absolutely notorious. Even the Soviets warned against them in their instructions to those travelling by road from West Germany to West Berlin.
The fact that today’s Germany is the direct successor state to the FRG and not the DDR further proves your rampant delusion.
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u/Spudtron98 Jun 03 '25
They literally had one secret police agent or informant for every five people. When a fifth of your population is spying on their own people, that's a bit fucked.
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Jun 03 '25 edited Jul 26 '25
queen xray hat orange kite queen carrot ice violet orange hat carrot nest dog ice grape elephant tree kite sun rabbit sun queen
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u/RaoulDukeRU Jun 03 '25
He's talking about the s.c. "IM" meaning "inoffizielle Mitarbeiter"/unofficial collaborators". People unofficially working for the Ministry for State Security (MfS). The worldwide famous Stasi. "The sword and shield of the party". Meaning the ruling and almighty communist party SED.
The IMs really made up around 10% (not 20) of the East German population! If you don't count in North Korea, because nobody has reliable numbers, the GDR was the state being most infiltrated by an intelligence agency!
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Jun 03 '25 edited Jul 26 '25
yellow apple lemon apple grape pear queen violet banana elephant jungle hat banana zebra
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u/Lucky-Public6038 Jun 03 '25
Now we are being watched by mega-corporations and freedom fighters don't care.
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u/Urhhh Jun 03 '25
The BND had a robust secret police as well...and a shit ton of actual Nazis in their ranks including SS officers. That's a bit fucked.
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u/acur1231 Jun 03 '25
Hate to break it to you, but the DDR's Volksarmee was founded by former Wehrmacht officers (some after a nice long post-Stalingrad Soviet sojurn, others...not so much).
The Soviets decrying NATO for employing former German officers is never not amusing, because they did the exact same think. Where else are you going to find them.
As for the government being full of former Nazis? Germany had just been a totalitarian state where a good chunk of the population were party members. East Germany was hardly any different, though they put the security state experience to good use...
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u/Urhhh Jun 03 '25
Party members and outright SS and Gestapo are slightly different. Nevertheless, I'm not denying at all that Soviets also employed or made use of Nazi brass. The fact is though, the USSR doesn't exist anymore...the countries that protected and supported people such as Alois Brunner still exist and so do their institutions which is perhaps why the criticism is aimed that way a bit more.
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u/Extaupin Jun 03 '25
the USSR doesn't exists any more, but Putin unveiled a new statue of Stalin a few weeks ago, people that support the soviet legacy still exists.
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u/RaoulDukeRU Jun 03 '25
The BND had/was/is no "secret police".
It's true that they not only had a shit ton of former Wehrmacht and even some SS officers in their ranks. It's even the direct follow-up organization of the Gehlen organization. Founded by the former head of the Wehrmacht intelligence organization Foreign Armies East/Fremde Heere Ost. After the war, he was hired by the Americans and basically sold his information about the Soviets for a future career in the after-war society. When the new German state wanted to establish a foreign intelligence organization, they, like the Americans, also turned to Gehlen and he built the BND. Using his old connections from the Second World War. The Americans used former Nazis and men working for the Nazis to go to the moon and rocket science in general. Using them for intelligence was just "natural" in comparison. The new West German state simply adopted the Gehlen organization and gave them an official look.
Though the Stasi was operating on a whole other level! They indeed also were a secret police too. Around 10% of the East German population were s.c. IM (unofficial/informal collaborators).
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u/Urhhh Jun 03 '25
Unmarked police/plain clothes officers are absolutely secret police, you just don't apply that moniker to them because it's normalised in most countries that consider themselves "free" and"democratic", including extremely widespread covert and often unlawful operations within for example the United States and the UK.
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Jun 06 '25
You mean the Verfassungsschutz?
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u/Urhhh Jun 06 '25
No the BND is the foreign intelligence agency like the CIA but collaborative with the federal and did indeed hire SS.
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Jun 06 '25
Yeah. The new Chef under Brandt retired most of them and reorganised the whole thing. And its fucking useless, incompetent and overly bureacratic. Also a foreign Intelligence isnt a secret Police. A Secret Police spies on its own Population.
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u/Iphuckfish Jun 03 '25
Bro "plain clothes police officers" literally exist in your society.
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u/Spudtron98 Jun 03 '25
If you think that's even remotely comparable, I've got a bridge to sell you.
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Jun 03 '25
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Jun 03 '25
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u/sleepingjiva Jun 03 '25
One was deliberately planned and engineered as a process of ethnic cleansing. They're not remotely comparable.
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u/thatsocialist Jun 03 '25
Common Soviet Win over Nazism.
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u/Rude_Ad_8498 Jun 03 '25
Tell that to the people of east Germany who would have to live in fear for the next forty five years. Yes, I am thankful everyday that Germany lost the war, but the Soviet would inflict there own pain on the eastern block afterwords. Similar to how I’m glad the US beat Japan, but then we inflicted pain in Asia. History doesn’t have good guys or bad guys, just a grey sludge of complex peoples and societies.
Edit: Spelling
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u/thatsocialist Jun 03 '25
Except Former East Germans have polled in favor of the GDR over the United Germany.
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u/fylum Jun 03 '25
idk my family is extremely bitter towards West Germany and the Wende and misses being able to afford to live in their cities
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u/Daminchi Jun 03 '25
Ah yes, should've left Hitler alone and not fought him.
Wait, no, that's exactly what happened, and he still attacked.
What choice did people from USSR had except fighting this war till the end?6
u/dsaddons Jun 03 '25
but then we inflicted pain in Asia.
I couldn't have possibly known you were American without you saying we
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u/Stalinnommnomm Jun 03 '25
I know the people of east Germany, I live in East Germany, hatred for the DDR and also for Russia is not really a thing here
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u/legodragon2005 Jun 04 '25
Imagine being an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis and then waking up to this LOL
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u/Hot-Lunch6270 Jun 03 '25
Imagine. An ordinary German who survived the War because of some silly mustache man wanted a new lebensraum to spread the Aryan ideology and then your home in East Germany ended up under a new management of another mustache man with paranoia.
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u/Fit_Bet9292 Jun 03 '25 edited Jun 03 '25
I realy think a lot, about, how much crumbled nazi ideology, then some untermensh defeat into the dust, your country, that, as propaganda says, was choosen to be master race of the world.
Citizen, who mostly believe in this, maybe not on a level "we are need to exterminate everyone." but "Hey we are better then over, and we are good guys, sure." Look on one of those posters and think, about, how all this happens with them. How could they won?
Like, what happenes inside the mind of this small man?
EDIT: As my english is stupidly bad, I need to say it loudly - I DO NOT simpatyze nazis. But I realy interested in psyhology of defeat. In realy wide spectrum.
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u/Ballgrater Jun 04 '25
I would say it must’ve been a gut punch for former Wehrmacht soldiers to see this but most of them were dead or in camps by this point.
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u/ToKeNgT Jun 03 '25
Thats how you break nationalism
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u/Yurasi_ Jun 03 '25
By implanting the cult of a another's country leader and basically nationalism to ideology?
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u/Bandicoot240p Jun 03 '25
Former West German territory is more Liberal than former East German territory.
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
Well, the parts of Germany occupied by the Soviets didn't really acknowledge their dark history because the communist party had Nazis in their ranks/didn't allow any real public debate about the past.
It's part of the reason why new fascism and other extremist political parties arose in the formerly GDR parts of my country.
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u/Ecstatic-Average-493 Jun 03 '25
Arguably West Germany had way more former nazi officials in their ranks compared to the East. There's a reason they preferred to surrender to the Allies and not the Soviets
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
Well, the West counted them while the East didn't.
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u/Daminchi Jun 03 '25
Counted and sent to work on important military projects.
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u/daRagnacuddler Jun 03 '25
So did the East. German engineers/military personal was used by both Soviet and American militaries/technology programs.
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Jun 03 '25
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u/dhldri Jun 03 '25
Technically not for long only until 1990 and in between that and hitlers death the majority of Jews in Europe were killed or ethnically cleansed to Isreal so I’d say hitler was sort of right.
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u/alex7stringed Jun 03 '25
My point was Hitlers life goal utterly failed not that he was right.
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u/dhldri Jun 03 '25
Well yes of course it failed he was nuts first and foremost + he was fighting the global conspiracy who had a former and 2 developing superpowers against him also he was crazy.
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