![]() ![]() How many heroic deeds must be vaunted by the masters of satire and drawing? And is it not also necessary to mark the contemptuous and grotesque William II with the red iron of the caricature? In these horrible and tragic, but highly glorious hours the Rire is by no means inappropriate, but on the contrary necessary. When they were published again, from November 1914, some of them, such as Le Rire, renamed Le Rire Rouge, felt obliged to justify their decision: La Vie Parisienne explained to its readers that its collaborators were at the front and the Germans at the doors of Paris. In France, in August 1914, the cartoon magazines halted publishing. Owen Seaman (1861-1936), editor-in-chief of the leading British humour and cartoon magazine Punch, also wondered if he should discontinue publishing, but finally decided to mobilize Punch for the national cause. Similar developments took place in other countries. On 8 August 1914 Paul Warncke (1866-1933), the editor-in-chief of the Kladderadatsch, explained to readers that his magazine would renounce all political satire and would instead fight against the disturbers of peace: and he put his trust in the victory of the German arms. His point of view was accepted, and the other cartoon magazines took the same decision. But Thomas Theodor Heine (1867-1948) refused and said that satirists now had a new task: to behave as good patriots and to support Germany’s war policy at home and abroad. When war broke out, the cartoonists faced a dilemma: should they continue to antagonize society and criticize the government? At a meeting with his colleagues, the editor-in-chief of Simplicissimus, Ludwig Thoma proposed that the paper should cease publication, because, while Germany was fighting for its existence, all satirical opposition to the government should stop. ![]() The cartoonists frequently had to appear in court, and at least one of them, Ludwig Thoma (1867-1921), spent six weeks in the Stadelheim prison on the charge of lèse-majesté. Between 19 alone, the paper was confiscated twenty-seven times. Not the biggest, but the most famous and perhaps the most influential of them in Germany was the Simplicissimus, which especially attacked the Junkers, the Catholic Church and the military. The contemporary German publicist Maximilian Harden (1861-1927) claimed that “no other sort of publication can have such an effect on public opinion as the illustrated satirical magazine”. In Germany the eight cartoon magazines had a total circulation of 986,000 copies, just a little less than the Berliner llustrirte Zeitung (1,000,000) and can thus rightly be considered a mass medium. ![]() Newspapers not only contained cartoons but occasionally published weekly cartoon supplements indeed, in all major countries, specialized cartoon and humour magazines competed for the favour of the public. The caricatures discussed in this article are in the form of satirical cartoons (simple drawings) rather than the written word.Ĭaricatures were popular in the first half of the 20 th century. Such caricatures are usually more aggressive than articles in the press. Thus the normal task of a caricaturist is to attack and to ridicule society and government, usually in an exaggerated or distorted way. The term “caricature”, is derived from the Old Italian word “caricare” which means “to exaggerate” and “to attack vehemently”. ![]() Introduction: The new Role of the Cartoonists During the War ↑ ![]()
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