How Disney made the Duck plead his allegiance to Hitler(and ruin your childhood)

There he is folks, Donald Duck as a Nazi…

When the Great Depression hit America, millions of American workers became unemployed and had no job. This happened to the now famous animation company, Disney. Valued animators were kept at Disney but many lesser artists couldn’t afford to buy food and realized that the owner Walt Disney, was making 5 times more than the average worker. As a result, many workers left the company, nearly half of Disney’s workers including key animators left the company and started to unionize. This shocked Walt Disney and it also hurt him as the company’s stock was dropping quickly and were losing money fast. Feeling disheartened and confused, Walt moved to South America to take a break and to recollect his thoughts. But then WW2 started and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, marking the point where the US would join the war. Walt saw this as an opportunity and decided to start getting into government training and propaganda films.

Popularity

Posters featuring famous Disney characters telling people to save oil and buy war bonds

Animation grew in popularity during the 1940s. While most of it was aimed at children, it was also aimed at adults too as two-thirds of American would visit the movie theatre each week to watch animations. Disney managed to produce 62,000 meters worth of film in between 1942 and 1943, which was five times more than what they usually produced. In total, Disney produced 68 hours worth of film throughout their WW2 production. The movies were commissioned by the US government and it included people like the then US Secretary of Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr. Disney would provide training films for the US and Canadian military and with the help from the US government, they were able to create a lot of money.

The Animations

Poster for “der Fueher’s Face”. Notice the way Hitler is depicted

The dark imagery in “Education for Death”

Comic books and movies for morale as they made the enemies look ridiculous but it also made Americans laugh at their own fears such as food shortages. These films gave Americans more courage. Disney’s propaganda films often showed strong and dark imagery and themes. For example, in 1943’s “Education For Death”, the film shows how children in Germany were taught to hate and to join the war when they’re older, and that the only purpose they had to serve was to die in the front. Common themes in animation propaganda included saving oil to help the war, investing in war bonds, and to show why the Axis powers were evil. But one of the most famous WW2 work by Disney was “der Fueher’s Face”, which showed Donald Duck working as an overworked Nazi working in an ammunition factory, saying “Heil Hitler!”, doing the Nazi salute, and proudly wearing the swastika. The animation won an Oscar in 1943 for the best short animated film of the year and it helped put Disney’s iconic characters as war machines. Germans, Italians, and Japanese were crudely depicted and often used racial stereotypical features to negatively portray the enemy which some today might see as racist. Aside from Disney, many other famous cartoon characters were also politicized during WW2 to help the war effort. This included Dick Tracy and Dr. Seuss. Needless to say, WW2 would definitely change the face of animation forever.

Donald Duck doing the Nazi salute… good lord why does this exist?

Summary

In this final lecture, we start to learn more developments in industrial design and see more posters and covers being used on products like cigarettes. We see new innovations like the first commercial flight and we also start to the start of WW2. With the advent of World War 2, many artists in Europe would flee to America in order to avoid death and persecution from Hitler. Many modern arts were called ‘degenerative art’ by Hitler and was publicly shunned, thus, art such as the Bauhaus was closed down. Because of this, America would become the new center of art instead of Europe, and it allowed many Americans to be exposed to European artists. World War 2 also saw the rise of propaganda by both the Allies and the Axis, as both tried to convince the public to join the war effort against the enemy. But with new innovations, we see more propaganda on TV, radio, film, and animation, exposing new types of propaganda to the public. I enjoyed this part of history because it is a big turning point in both art and design. Not only do we see film and animation become more prominent in art, but we also see how WW2 would change art completely. Since this is the first major time that America becomes a center of art, we start to see the rise of American artists and a new generation. We see how much of modern advertising comes from WW2 and how its influence still carries on. But we also start seeing more of the truth and tragedy about the dark side of life with events like the Holocaust and destruction influencing the way we think about human life.

Images

https://www.vulture.com/2015/10/how-mickey-mouse-fought-world-war-ii.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Fuehrer%27s_Face

Influencing America through Animation – WWII Propaganda Cartoons: Part Three: Walt Disney

Sources

https://www.vulture.com/2015/10/how-mickey-mouse-fought-world-war-ii.html

http://time.com/4326360/walt-disney-world-war-ii-excerpt/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/donald-versus-hitler-walt-disney-and-the-art-of-wwii-propaganda-a-641547.html

Influencing America through Animation – WWII Propaganda Cartoons: Part Three: Walt Disney