Die beste Sparkasse: Kriegsanleihe! (The Best Savings Bank: War Loan!)
A hand holds out an upturned steel helmet into which banknotes are falling, over the line 'The best savings bank: war loan!' The superlative comes with no rate, term or comparison, and nothing says that repayment depended on the state's finances after the war.
A German war-loan poster of 1917 by the artist Louis Oppenheim, printed in Nuremberg, aimed at domestic savers. A hand holds out an upturned steel helmet into which banknotes fall, under the line 'The best savings bank: War loan!'. The tag is card stacking: the bond is presented as a savings account by label alone, with no rate, term or comparison, and the risk that repayment depended on the war's outcome and postwar finances is left out.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1917
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Imperial German war-loan campaign; artist Louis Oppenheim
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Themes, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- German Empire
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- German Empire
- Leader
- Wilhelm II
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Fundraise
- Themes
- Economy and finance, Home front
- Event
- World War I
- Leader
- Wilhelm II
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931)
Oppenheim, Louis, 1879-1936, artist; Rehse Archiv für Zeitgeschichte und Publizistik, DLC, former owner. 1917. Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-11693.
Text on the object
Original (German) · read from the image, not independently checked
Die beste Sparkasse: Kriegsanleihe! Entwurf: Louis Oppenheim Druck: Fritz Schneller & Co. Nürnberg
The best savings bank: War loan! Design: Louis Oppenheim Printed: Fritz Schneller & Co. Nuremberg
A small round stamp/seal on the helmet at lower left is too small and low-contrast in this scan to read and is not transcribed. The denominations on the falling banknotes (e.g. '1000', '100') are design elements of the illustrated currency, not the poster's own message, and are not transcribed as running text.
