---
title: He's Watching You
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hes-watching-you/
description: A menacing, disembodied German helmet and eyes loom over the phrase 'He's watching you,' with no context, unit, or evidence given for the claim of…
section: Collection
---

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

[![He's Watching You](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hes-watching-you.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hes-watching-you.jpg)

# He's Watching You

A menacing, disembodied German helmet and eyes loom over the phrase 'He's watching you,' with no context, unit, or evidence given for the claim of surveillance. The enemy's presence is asserted as an omnipresent, unlocated threat so any lapse in secrecy feels personally consequential.

- **Date:** 1942
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** U.S. government home-front security campaign; artist Glenn Grohe
- **Region:** [North America](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=north-america)
- **Country:** [United States](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=united-states)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Roosevelt Administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=roosevelt-administration)
- **Leader:** [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=franklin-d-roosevelt)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Warn or inform](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=warn-inform)
- **Themes:** [Security and surveillance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=security-surveillance), [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front), [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)
- **Regime:** [Roosevelt administration](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/roosevelt-administration/)
- **Leader:** [Franklin D. Roosevelt](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/roosevelt-administration/#franklin-d-roosevelt)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22He%27s_Watching_You%22_-_NARA_-_513552.jpg), retrieved September 25, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (U.S. government work) Glenn Grohe, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (1941-1945).

## Text on the object

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

```
HE'S
WATCHING
YOU
```

[← 'He's coming south. It's fight, work or perish' (Australian Department of Information)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hes-coming-south-australia-1942/) [Loose Lips Might Sink Ships →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/loose-lips-might-sink-ships/)

## Using the same techniques

- [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)
- [時局圖 (The Situation in the Far East / Map of the Present Situation), newer version with English labels](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/situation-in-far-east-tse-tsan-tai-1900/) (1900 · Fear appeal)