"Der RIAS merk's dir armer Tropf": anti-RIAS display-case panel, Leipzig
A painted panel in a shop-style display case: a seated man in a checked suit has a plank hammered onto his head by a sleeve marked with a dollar sign, next to sacks of flour. The verse calls him a 'poor fool', says the broadcaster RIAS will nail a board before his head, and tells viewers never to tune in again. The dollar sleeve pastes a stigma onto the station.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1952
- Period
- Cold War
- Made by
- Exhibitor not named in the record; display case photographed in Leipzig by Roger and Renate Rössing (Deutsche Fotothek)
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Theme, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- East Germany
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- German Democratic Republic
- Leader
- Otto Grotewohl
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Theme
- Media and information
- Event
- Cold War
- Leader
- Otto Grotewohl
- Source
- Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- Source
- Deutsche Fotothek (SLUB Dresden), df_roe-neg_0006349_025, via Wikimedia Commons, 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_0006349_025 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE
Text on the object
Original (German) · read from the image, not independently checked
Der RIAS merk's dir armer Tropf, schlägt dir ein großes Brett vor'n Kopf. So sag' auch du ab heute NEIN! Und stelle nie mehr RIAS ein! [sacks at left: 'Mehl' and one further partly illegible word]
RIAS, note it, poor fool, knocks a big board in front of your head. So you too, from today, say NO! And never tune in RIAS again! [sacks at left: 'flour' and one further partly illegible word]
Read from the committed image; 'stelle ... ein' is the radio idiom 'einstellen' (to tune in), translated literally as 'tune in'.
