---
title: Zum Kampf auf's Letzte sind wir herausgefordert! (German poster, 1917, Anton Hoffmann)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/german-last-ditch-african-troops-poster-1917/
description: 'Yellow German poster: a German labourer with a pickaxe is held at rifle point by an African soldier in French uniform while a French officer watches…'
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** WWI German poster depicting an African soldier in French uniform as a threat, with a racial caricature style and the word 'Sklave' This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![Zum Kampf auf's Letzte sind wir herausgefordert! (German poster, 1917, Anton Hoffmann)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/german-last-ditch-african-troops-poster-1917.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/german-last-ditch-african-troops-poster-1917.jpg)

# Zum Kampf auf's Letzte sind wir herausgefordert! (German poster, 1917, Anton Hoffmann)

Yellow German poster: a German labourer with a pickaxe is held at rifle point by an African soldier in French uniform while a French officer watches; other labourers dig behind. Black-letter text says Germans would lose property and personal freedom in a French-English victory and would work 'only as slaves'. The tell: a staged, imminent loss of freedom, attributed to unnamed 'French senators', is offered to move the reader to fight on (fear-appeal).

## Text on the object

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

```
Zum Kampf auf's Letzte
sind wir herausgefordert!

Nicht nur Hab und Gut auch die persönliche Freiheit müßte der Deutsche im Falle eines französisch-englischen Sieges verlieren.

Französische Senatoren machten in vielen Parlamentssitzungen zur Bedingung, daß der Deutsche in Zukunft nur als Sklave in englisch-französischer Frohn zu arbeiten habe.

Es geht um alles:

Um die nationale Selbständigkeit, um die persönliche Freiheit, um das Recht auf Arbeit, Wohlstand und Glück, um unsere und unserer Kinder Zukunft.

[signature in the drawing:] Anton Hofmann München
```

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

```
We are challenged to fight to the last!

Not only goods and property but also personal freedom would the German lose in the event of a French-English victory.

French senators made it a condition in many parliamentary sittings that the German in future should work only as a slave in English-French forced labour.

It is about everything:

For national independence, for personal freedom, for the right to work, prosperity and happiness, for our and our children's future.

[signature in the drawing:] Anton Hofmann, Munich
```

Read from the 960 px image; the signature is spelled with one n in the drawing, LOC catalogues it Hoffmann. Translation is FRAME's literal machine rendering, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← Für die Kriegsanleihe! (For the War Loan!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/german-fuer-die-kriegsanleihe-1917/) [Θέλεις και σὺ Καβάλλα; (Do You Want Kavala Too?) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/greece-theleis-kai-sy-kavalla-1917/)

## 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)