---
title: '"Wer uns angreift wird vernichtet": GDR border sign beside the new Berlin Wall (CIA photograph)'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-wer-uns-angreift-wird-vernichtet-sign-1961/
description: A CIA photograph taken over barbed wire and a fresh concrete-block wall in East Berlin shows a white board in block capitals reading 'WER UNS ANGREIFT…
section: Collection
---

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

[!["Wer uns angreift wird vernichtet": GDR border sign beside the new Berlin Wall (CIA photograph)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-wer-uns-angreift-wird-vernichtet-sign-1961.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-wer-uns-angreift-wird-vernichtet-sign-1961.jpg)

# "Wer uns angreift wird vernichtet": GDR border sign beside the new Berlin Wall (CIA photograph)

A CIA photograph taken over barbed wire and a fresh concrete-block wall in East Berlin shows a white board in block capitals reading 'WER UNS ANGREIFT WIRD VERNICHTET', beside a GDR flag, with soldiers and lorries working behind it. The tell is the bare threat posted at the sealed border: a promise of annihilation addressed to unnamed 'attackers' (fear appeal). The CIA's own caption says it was posted to intimidate the West; the photograph does not show who read it.

## Text on the object

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

```
WER UNS
ANGREIFT
WIRD
VERNICHTET

[street sign, centre right:] Niederkirchnerstraße
```

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

```
WHOEVER ATTACKS US
WILL BE DESTROYED

[street sign:] Niederkirchnerstraße
```

Block capitals on a white board; the street-name sign at the right is small but legible. Translation by machine, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← "Am 13. August gab's roten Pfeffer": house-community banner, Bitterfeld](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bitterfeld-red-pepper-banner-1961/) ["Der deutsche Friedensvertrag bändigt den westdeutschen Militarismus!": sign at the Friedrichstraße checkpoint, Berlin →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-friedrichstrasse-checkpoint-peace-treaty-sign-1961/)

## 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)