16 Over-the-Top WWII Propaganda Posters ..were they?

Paul Jury: 16 Over-the-Top WWII Propaganda Posters

Editor's note: Some offensive historical images follow]
Ah, war. That great noble conquest in which one group decides that its ideology is superior enough to another group's that everyone in that other group needs to die.
Perhaps sometimes war is justified, perhaps not (I'll leave that for the commenters to decide), but one thing is for sure: countries get REALLY amped up about it when they're in a war. So much so that they design fun, happy posters.
Nothing gets people in a mood to shoot guns and ration gasoline like propaganda, an unarguably important part in the psychological component of war. But sometimes propaganda - even from the good old U.S.A. - goes a bit over the top.

The following are 16 U.S. propaganda posters from World War II, promoting everything from stopping Hitler to preventing forest fires (yes, seriously). When war is in the air, no topic is off limits.



And yes, as far as I know, all of these are real. Except this one:

 

Maybe the first poster worked, maybe not...( pretty much the same problem with armies every time, isn´t it?)

"American official hypocrisy in refusing to regulate brothels also ensured that the armies carried venereal disease everywhere they went (by the end of the war, helped partly by a shortage of condoms, 14% of American troops were estimated to have the disease)."

Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom, Europe 1944-1945 by William Hitchcock - Times Online

 

You've got to love this one:

 

I don't know if the posters reminding people to be careful about what they said were over the top.

KTK

 

I don't think there is anything casual about the way the Axis powers were villified, it's all part of the dehumanization of enemies. I am sure these are a very mild interpetation of public sentiment at the time.

 

I think it (racism/prejudice etc) was much more prevelant at the time. If you want to disect the west coast there were more than a few ill feelings towards Asians, Hispanics that were long running. If you bring the Jim Crowe influence from the recent westward push the proclevity of racial intolerance is easy to discern. You might also be able to infer that eduaction and intellect levels of the time played a roll in that as well: there is a stat somewhere from 1942 that reflects only 60% of new inductees had graduated High School and an even smaller percentage was able to read above the 6th grade level.