"Die Wiege des Völkerbundes" (Simplicissimus cartoon, 1919)
A gaunt, bespectacled man in black sits under a willow holding a small tablet, one hand resting on a black coffin marked with a cross that stands on a cradle's rockers; two men bend over it at right. The tell is the caption's pun on the League of Nations: funeral and clerical imagery is laid over a christening, so the new body is shown as dead at birth.
- Date
- March 11, 1919
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- Simplicissimus (Munich satirical weekly)
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Weimar Germany
- Medium
- Cartoon
- Issuer type
- Media
- Regime
- Weimar Republic
- Leader
- Philipp Scheidemann
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Theme
- War and the military
- Event
- Paris Peace Conference
- Techniques
- Transfer
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, retrieved September 29, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain in U.S. (published 1919; LOC: no known restrictions on publication)
Olaf Gulbransson, Simplicissimus (Munich), 11 March 1919. Library of Congress, LOT 4639-F, LC-USZ62-22634.
Text on the object
Die Wiege des Völkerbundes (Zeichnung von O. Gulbransson) OLAF G. [monogram, upper right] „Die Wiege ist gut gewählt für ein totgeborenes Kind.“
The cradle of the League of Nations (Drawing by O. Gulbransson) OLAF G. [monogram, upper right] "The cradle is well chosen for a stillborn child."
Title and caption are in the magazine's blackletter type. A handwritten pencil note at lower right (apparently '4.19') is an archival marking, not part of the printed page. The committed JPEG is a 1280-pixel greyscale conversion of the LOC master TIFF.
