---
title: '"Denkt an Ungarn: Seid wachsam!" CDU poster, 1957 Bundestag election'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/cdu-denkt-an-ungarn-1957/
description: 'Text poster over a black sky, a red horizon and a skyline of ruined buildings: ''Denkt an Ungarn: Seid wachsam!'' above a large yellow CDU. The tell is the…'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[!["Denkt an Ungarn: Seid wachsam!" CDU poster, 1957 Bundestag election](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cdu-denkt-an-ungarn-1957.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/cdu-denkt-an-ungarn-1957.jpg)

# "Denkt an Ungarn: Seid wachsam!" CDU poster, 1957 Bundestag election

Text poster over a black sky, a red horizon and a skyline of ruined buildings: 'Denkt an Ungarn: Seid wachsam!' above a large yellow CDU. The tell is the invoked place name: the suppressed 1956 Hungarian uprising is used as the stigma to be guarded against, and the party letters are the only remedy on the sheet (fear-appeal, transfer).

- **Date:** 1957
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** CDU (Christian Democratic Union), Bundesgeschäftsstelle Bonn; artist signed 'Briese'; printed by Kölnische Verlagsdruckerei, Cologne
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [West Germany](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=west-germany)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Party](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=party)
- **Regime:** [Adenauer Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=adenauer-government)
- **Leader:** [Konrad Adenauer](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=konrad-adenauer)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Themes:** [Elections and party politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=elections-party-politics), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [1957 West German Federal Election](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=1957-west-german-federal-election)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Archiv für Christlich-Demokratische Politik (ACDP 10-001: 601), via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KAS-Antikommunismus-Bild-353-2.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY-SA 3.0 DE (Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung cooperation release; file page states the licence) KAS/ACDP 10-001: 601 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE (artist: Briese)

## Text on the object

Original (German) · checked against a source transcription

```
BRIESE [signature, rotated, top left]

Denkt an Ungarn:
Seid wachsam !

CDU

Herausgeber: C.D.U. Bundesgeschäftsstelle Bonn [small print, lower left]
Druck: Kölnische Verlagsdruckerei GMBH, Köln [small print, lower right]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
Think of Hungary: Be vigilant! CDU. Publisher: CDU Federal Office, Bonn. Printed by Kölnische Verlagsdruckerei GmbH, Cologne.
```

Headline and party name read from the image; the small-print imprint is barely legible in the committed file and was checked against the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung record on the Commons file page (client 'CDU-Bundesgeschäftsstelle Bonn', printer 'Kölnische Verlagsdruckerei GmbH, Köln', artist 'Briese'). The committed file is Commons' 960 px rendering of a 793 x 1123 px original, so it is enlarged rather than sharper.

[← Sovetskie soldaty! Russian-language appeal to Soviet troops, Budapest 1956](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hungarian-youth-appeal-soviet-soldiers-1956/) [Crowd at the Arkansas State Capitol protesting school integration, with signs reading "Race mixing is Communism," Little Rock, Arkansas →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/race-mixing-is-communism-1959/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [豬叫取胎圖 (Picture of the Pig Sect Extracting a Foetus), from Reverently Obeying the Sacred Edict: A Complete Picture Gallery to Repel Heterodoxy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/pig-cry-taking-foetus-hunan-1891/) (1891 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Colour woodblock caricature depicting foreign Christians as members of a 'pig' sect and showing them cutting a foetus from a woman; violence against a woman and derision of Christianity.
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- [En posesión de su presa (In Possession of Its Prey)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/en-posesion-de-su-presa-el-diablo-1894/) (Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)
- [劉永福懸賞抓拿日本奸細告示 (Liu Yongfu's notice offering rewards for capturing Japanese spies), Taiwan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/liu-yongfu-reward-notice-japanese-spies-1895/) (1895 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Sífilis: Curación absoluta y radical en el Sanatorio para sifilíticos (Syphilis: Absolute and Radical Cure at the Sanatorium for Syphilitics)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sifilis-sanatorio-abreu-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)