---
title: '"Wer hoch hinaus will, fällt tief": GDR border billboard near Mackenrode'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-wer-hoch-hinaus-will-faellt-tief-border-board-1960/
description: A large field-side billboard shows a caricatured man in a dark suit riding a rocket upward on a ladder marked 'NATO', held by a helmeted soldier at its…
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Caricature of a man in a suit riding a rocket on a ladder marked NATO, on a GDR border billboard. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[!["Wer hoch hinaus will, fällt tief": GDR border billboard near Mackenrode](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-wer-hoch-hinaus-will-faellt-tief-border-board-1960.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-wer-hoch-hinaus-will-faellt-tief-border-board-1960.jpg)

# "Wer hoch hinaus will, fällt tief": GDR border billboard near Mackenrode

A large field-side billboard shows a caricatured man in a dark suit riding a rocket upward on a ladder marked 'NATO', held by a helmeted soldier at its foot, under the proverb 'He who aims high falls low.' Two uniformed men walk past in the foreground. The tell is the proverb as a warning: it promises a fall to the NATO-armed rocket-rider, a threat directed across the border (fear appeal).

## Text on the object

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

```
WER HOCH
HINAUS WILL.
FÄLLT TIEF.

[on the ladder:] NATO
```

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

```
HE WHO WANTS TO GO HIGH
FALLS DEEP.

[on the ladder:] NATO
```

Read from the committed 922 px image and matched against the annotation on the Commons file page. Translation by machine, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← "Plane mit Arbeite mit Regiere mit!": town-hall banner, Königstein (Saxon Switzerland)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-plane-mit-banner-koenigstein-1960/) [Cooperative farmers watch Ulbricht's Volkskammer statement on television, Höhnstedt →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-hoehnstedt-farmers-watch-ulbricht-broadcast-1960/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [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)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [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)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)