Tip of the Week – Propaganda Posters
I spent Wednesday with a great group of middle and high school teachers, talking about the best ways to engage kids in thinking historically. A good chunk of the day focused on using primary and secondary sources. I always have fun being a part of history teachers sharing ideas and resources. Kenny Holthaus of Royal Valley HS shared a site I hadn’t seen before that documents some awesome World War II propaganda posters.
I’ve added it to my growing collection of propaganda resources. I’ve included some of those sites below as well as a few lesson plans that might be useful. A simple exercise is to have kids compare two images of the same topic from different periods or different countries.
The first picture below is an US poster from World War II urging Americans to be careful what they say. (It’s from the US Air Force collection.) The second is a similar image from the same period but from a German perspective. (You can find it and others at the German Propaganda Archive below.)
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- Source: United Air Force Security Forces
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- Source: German Propaganda Archive
(You can start by going to my Delicious page tagged “propaganda.”)
Lesson Plans
Argument, Persuasion, or Propaganda? Analyzing World War II Posters
World War II Powers of Persuasion (National Archives)
Critical Inquiry of Propaganda Posters from World War I
Anne Frank & the Holocaust – Josef Goebbels and Nazi Propaganda
General Resources
World War Two Resources
World War II posters (US Air Force)
National Socialist Posters (posters good, web site probably biased)
World War II propaganda, cartoons, film, music, art
World War One Resources
Propaganda Postcards of the Great War
First World War Propaganda Posters
History Tech 
I am so excited to have found so much information and materials on WWII and the Holocaust. I teach a unit that contains both topics and in the past have only had access to a couple posters showing how propaganda was used by both sides. I now have a wealth of primary sources to share with my students due to your posts. Thank you very much!
Kathy,
It’s great you found some stuff that you can use! Hope you keep coming back!
glennw
Hi. In case you haven’t come across it yet, my website has a number of British posters on it: http://www.ww2poster.co.uk
Thanks for your site. It is very interesting. I am looking for bibliography on propaganda and persuasion.
I am doing research on students’ interpretation of political posters. I am a teacher at the University of Minho, north of Portugal. I choose this subject for my public exam (a lecture) for aggregation
I will focus propaganda posters that Salazar (prime minister) has used during almost 50 years of our dictatorship.
My research group on History Education /Visual Historical literacy have also developed studies on political cartoons.
I will become a frequent viewer of your site.
Thank you again.
It is so wonderful to find such a thorough guide of resources for propaganda! I am about to start Animal Farm with my tenth graders and this has just made the whole process of planning the unit’s opening lessons so much more exciting. Thank you so much for sharing!
Glad we could help! There are a lot of very cool resources out there. Have fun!
glennw