---
title: Atlantic Pact float in a peace demonstration, Leipzig
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-leipzig-atlantic-pact-float-1950/
description: A truck carries a large globe with a top-hatted figure in striped trousers sprawled across it and a label reading 'ATLANTIK-PAKT', while marchers and a…
section: Collection
---

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

[![Atlantic Pact float in a peace demonstration, Leipzig](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-leipzig-atlantic-pact-float-1950.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-leipzig-atlantic-pact-float-1950.jpg)

# Atlantic Pact float in a peace demonstration, Leipzig

A truck carries a large globe with a top-hatted figure in striped trousers sprawled across it and a label reading 'ATLANTIK-PAKT', while marchers and a brass band pass a shop front. The slogan on the truck side frames the struggle for peace as a fight for the survival of the whole German people, which presents the pact as a threat to survival.

- **Date:** 1950
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** Demonstration organiser not named in the record; truck marked MAS (Maschinen-Ausleih-Station); photographed in Leipzig by Roger and Renate Rössing (Deutsche Fotothek)
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [East Germany](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=east-germany)
- **Medium:** [Photograph](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=photograph)
- **Issuer type:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=mixed)
- **Regime:** [German Democratic Republic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=german-democratic-republic)
- **Leader:** [Walter Ulbricht](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=walter-ulbricht)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Persuade or win support](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=persuade-support)
- **Theme:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=cold-war)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Deutsche Fotothek (SLUB Dresden), df_roe-neg_0003140_002, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fotothek_df_roe-neg_0003140_002_Wagen_mit_Propaganda_gegen_den_Atlantikpakt,_im_Hintergrund_ein_HO-Gesch%C3%A4ft.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY-SA 3.0 DE (Deutsche Fotothek release on Wikimedia Commons; file page states the licence) Deutsche Fotothek / Roger und Renate Rössing, df_roe-neg_0003140_002 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE

## Text on the object

Original (German) · checked against a source transcription

```
Der Kampf um den Frieden ist der Lebenskampf unseres gesamten deutschen Volkes

ATLANTIK-PAKT

MAS
```

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

```
The struggle for peace is the struggle for survival of our whole German people

ATLANTIC PACT

MAS
```

The slogan on the truck side is only partly legible at this size; its wording is taken from the transcription on the Commons file page, which records it with long-s spelling ('iſt', 'unſeres', 'geſamten', 'deutſchen'). 'ATLANTIK-PAKT' (label on the globe) and 'MAS' (truck door) were read from the image. Other signage on the shop fronts is not transcribed.

[← Lenin, Rákosi and Stalin portraits: Innovation and Invention Exhibition, Budapest](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hungary-lenin-rakosi-stalin-exhibition-1949/) ['Deutscher, hilf den Frieden erhalten' (German, help preserve peace): banner on a state farm, Petkus, East Germany →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/deutscher-hilf-den-frieden-erhalten-petkus-1950/)

## 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/) (1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [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)