? (The German Ogre), Norman Lindsay recruiting poster
A spiked-helmet ape-like ogre grips a globe in blood-red hands while blood runs from Europe across the map, beside a large question mark and no other words except the printer's line. The bestial figure labels the enemy as a monster, and the spreading blood stages the threat.
An Australian recruiting poster of about 1918 by the artist Norman Lindsay, issued by the Commonwealth Government. The only large mark is a question mark, beside a spiked-helmet, ape-like figure gripping a globe in blood-red hands while blood runs across Europe on the map. The figure uses name-calling and dehumanization together, giving the enemy the form of a beast so that it is judged without any argument. The spreading blood is a fear appeal, staging harm that is about to reach the viewer. The Australian War Memorial's catalogue describes it as one of six slogan-free posters in the last national recruiting campaign, and notes that it drew protest in Parliament.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1918
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Commonwealth Government of Australia (recruiting campaign); artist Norman Lindsay
Full record
Region, Country, Medium, Issuer type, Regime, Leader, Audience, Purpose, Theme, Event, Source, Rights
- Region
- Oceania
- Country
- Australia
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Hughes Government
- Leader
- William Morris Hughes
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Recruit
- Theme
- War and the military
- Event
- World War I
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Australian War Memorial (via Wikimedia Commons), retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (AWM: 'Copyright expired - public domain'; published c. 1918, before 1931)
Lindsay, Norman; Commonwealth Government of Australia. Australian War Memorial, ARTV00078.
Text on the object
Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked
? [printed line at lower left] Issued by the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia [printed line at lower right] Chas. Steele and Co., Melbourne
The only text in the design is the question mark; the two small lines run along the foot of the sheet.
