---
title: This Is the Enemy
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/this-is-the-enemy-1943/
description: 'Office of War Information Poster No. 76: a hand in a sleeve with a swastika armband drives a bayonet down through a Holy Bible, above the words ''This is…'
section: Collection
---

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

**Content note:** Nazi swastika and violent imagery. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![This Is the Enemy](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/this-is-the-enemy-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/this-is-the-enemy-1943.jpg)

# This Is the Enemy

Office of War Information Poster No. 76: a hand in a sleeve with a swastika armband drives a bayonet down through a Holy Bible, above the words 'This is the enemy.' This plate shows no face and no racial caricature (other posters under the same title are not described here); the enemy is reduced to a single symbol of Nazi Germany attacking a religious one, under a flat label the viewer is told to fear and oppose without further distinction.

- **Date:** 1943
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** U.S. government home-front campaign
- **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:** [Demonize](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=demonize)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Religion](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=religion)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)
- **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:THIS_IS_THE_ENEMY_-_NARA_-_513554.jpg), retrieved September 25, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (U.S. government work) U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, World War II Posters series (1942-1945).

## Text on the object

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

```
Holy BIBLE

THIS IS THE ENEMY

OWI Poster No. 76.  Additional copies may be obtained upon request from the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, Washington, D. C.

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE  1943—O  [illegible]
```

'Holy BIBLE' is the gold-stamped title on the book's cover in the illustration. The final job/print number after '1943—O' in the bottom-right credit line is too small and low-contrast in this scan to read with confidence.

[← She May Look Clean—But](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/she-may-look-clean-but-1943/) [United We Win →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/united-we-win-1943/)

## 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)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India (printed sheet, Allahabad, 1 November 1858)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/queens-proclamation-to-the-people-of-india-1858/) (Nov 1, 1858 · Glittering generalities, Scapegoating)
- [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)
- ["England and the War in South Africa" (Der wahre Jacob, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/war-and-capitalism-der-wahre-jacob-1899/) (Dec 5, 1899 · Card stacking, Scapegoating)
- ["Negro Rule" vampire cartoon with sworn affidavit](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/negro-rule-vampire-1900/) (Jul 4, 1900 · Accusation in a mirror, Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Racist "Negro Rule" caricature.
- [Японский Император и его лукавые доброжелатели (The Japanese Emperor and His Cunning Well-Wishers): Russian Russo-Japanese War print](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-mikado-cunning-well-wishers-1904/) (1904 · Name-calling, Scapegoating)
- [The Menace front page, 12 April 1913 (Aurora, Missouri)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-menace-front-page-1913/) (Apr 12, 1913 · Bandwagon, Scapegoating). Content note: Anti-Catholic newspaper front page with a skull-and-crossbones emblem labelled 'Temporal Power' and claims of a Roman Catholic conspiracy.