---
title: Enemy Ears Are Listening (OWI Poster No. 5)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/enemy-ears-are-listening-owi-5-1942/
description: Three heads side by side, Mussolini in a peaked cap, Tojo in round glasses and Hitler, each with one hand cupped behind an ear, above the banner 'Enemy…
section: Collection
---

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

[![Enemy Ears Are Listening (OWI Poster No. 5)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/enemy-ears-are-listening-owi-5-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/enemy-ears-are-listening-owi-5-1942.jpg)

# Enemy Ears Are Listening (OWI Poster No. 5)

Three heads side by side, Mussolini in a peaked cap, Tojo in round glasses and Hitler, each with one hand cupped behind an ear, above the banner 'Enemy Ears Are Listening'. The three leaders stand in for an unseen listening threat in ordinary conversation.

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
ENEMY EARS are listening
```

Small print at lower left (an OWI Graphics Division address for additional copies and 'OWI Poster No. 5') and lower right (U.S. Government Printing Office imprint, 1942) is too small to read reliably and is not transcribed in full.

[← Drive the Japs from the Aleutians! Our Bullets Will Do It!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/drive-the-japs-from-the-aleutians-1942/) ['He's coming south. It's fight, work or perish' (Australian Department of Information) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hes-coming-south-australia-1942/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 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/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
- [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/) (Qing China · 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/) (United Kingdom · 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/) (Venezuela · Jun 2, 1894 · Fear appeal)