---
title: 'Eulenspiegel cover, July 1928: ''Caesar Mussolini'' by Charles Girod'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/eulenspiegel-caesar-mussolini-girod-1928/
description: Magazine cover caricature of Mussolini as a squat figure in a black cape with arms crossed and a skull hanging on his chest, standing on a rise lined…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Caricature of Mussolini wearing a skull pendant, with gallows in the background. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Eulenspiegel cover, July 1928: 'Caesar Mussolini' by Charles Girod](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/eulenspiegel-caesar-mussolini-girod-1928.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/eulenspiegel-caesar-mussolini-girod-1928.jpg)

# Eulenspiegel cover, July 1928: 'Caesar Mussolini' by Charles Girod

Magazine cover caricature of Mussolini as a squat figure in a black cape with arms crossed and a skull hanging on his chest, standing on a rise lined with gallows, against a red ground. The printed line gives him a Caesar boast with a pun on the Red Sea: 'Caesar led his legions as far as the Red Sea; I will make a red sea out of the whole world!' The tell: a foreign leader is labelled with a Roman title, a skull and gallows, and a quoted boast with no source given.

## Text on the object

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

```
[top edge, partly cropped:] BERLIN, JULI 1928    PREIS 30 PFENNIG    [illegible]

EULENSPIEGEL
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR SCHER[Z, IRO]NIE UND TIEFERE BEDEUTUNG

CAESAR MUSSOLINI:
[C]aesar führte seine Legionen bis ans Rote Meer — Ich aber werde aus der ganzen Welt ein rotes Meer machen!

[lower right, cut off:] Zeichnung: CHARLES [G...]
```

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

```
[top edge, partly cropped:] BERLIN, JULY 1928    PRICE 30 PFENNIG    [illegible]

EULENSPIEGEL
PERIODICAL FOR JEST, IRONY AND DEEPER MEANING

CAESAR MUSSOLINI:
Caesar led his legions as far as the Red Sea — but I will make a red sea out of the whole world!

[lower right, cut off:] Drawing: CHARLES [G...]
```

The upload is cropped at the left and right edges and the subtitle is partly hidden by the figure's head; the bracketed letters are supplied from the sense. Translation is a machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← l'Unità, January 1928: 'Resistere alla seconda ondata di riduzione dei salari! SCIOPERATE!' (front page)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/l-unita-sciopero-salari-1928/) [Bezbozhnik u stanka No. 19, 1929: anti-alcohol issue, 'a modern variation on drunkenness at Cana' (cover) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bezbozhnik-u-stanka-anti-alcohol-cana-1929/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (Electoral Saxony · 1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [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.
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (Dutch Republic · 1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [The Highlanders Medley, or The Duke Triumphant (A Loyal Song)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/highlanders-medley-duke-triumphant-1746/) (Great Britain · 1746 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [The North Briton, No. XLV, 23 April 1763 (John Wilkes), opening page](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/north-briton-no-45-wilkes-1763/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Apr 23, 1763 · Name-calling)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [Marche du Dom Quichotte moderne pour la deffence du Moulin des Abus (March of the Modern Don Quixote in Defence of the Mill of Abuses)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/dom-quichotte-moulin-des-abus-1791/) (France · 1791 · Name-calling, Transfer)
- [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)