Pan-Judah!: Volume Two

Beginning in the 1920s, a man named Julius Streicher published a small weekly German newspaper called Der Stürmer. Its mission was straightforward: to warn the German people about the threats posed by foreign and domestic Jews. The dangers were very real, and Streicher’s stories gave a blunt and direct account of them.

A key feature of Der Stürmer was its political cartoons. The cover of every issue, and several interior pages, displayed cartoons depicting various Jewish dangers, in a most striking and graphic form. The lead cartoonist was a man named ‘Fips’ Rupprecht. His cartoons became the signature feature of the newspaper, and grew to represent the broader German struggle against Jewry.

With the demise of National Socialist Germany, Der Stürmer and Fips’ cartoons were largely forgotten. Or rather, they were buried-the victorious nations certainly did not want old Nazi images floating around, raising difficult questions and making people think.

Recently, though, a skilled digital artist named Robert Penman rediscovered the forgotten images. He carefully restored, colorized, and reissued them. Here, in volume two of this series, Penman has produced another 200 of the best Fips images, as they have never been seen before.

Penman has done a masterful job. The images are sharp, crisp, and compelling. The colors are stunningly vivid. The effect is truly astonishing. Fips’ cartoons, originally printed on cheap newsprint, come alive for the first time. Every image is a small masterpiece, a true work of contemporary art. And one each tells a story-a story with relevance for the present day.

Volume two is organized thematically, with 11 chapters covering such topics as “blood libel”, “morality and immorality”, “media and press”, and “the USA”. The book closes with chapters on assorted Fips images, the non-Fips work “A Good Frenchman”, and various non-Stürmer cartoons. All in all, another fascinating and compelling collection of cartoons.