---
title: So hilft dein Geld Dir kämpfen! In U-Boote verwandelt, hält es Dir feindliche Granaten vom Leib! (This Is How Your Money Helps You Fight! Turned into U-boats, It Keeps Enemy Shells off Your Body!)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/u-boote-kriegsanleihe-1917/
description: A ghostly figure in a naval cap puts an arm around a steel-helmeted soldier and points to a ship burning and sinking on the horizon.
section: Collection
---

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

[![So hilft dein Geld Dir kämpfen! In U-Boote verwandelt, hält es Dir feindliche Granaten vom Leib! (This Is How Your Money Helps You Fight! Turned into U-boats, It Keeps Enemy Shells off Your Body!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/u-boote-kriegsanleihe-1917.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/u-boote-kriegsanleihe-1917.jpg)

# So hilft dein Geld Dir kämpfen! In U-Boote verwandelt, hält es Dir feindliche Granaten vom Leib! (This Is How Your Money Helps You Fight! Turned into U-boats, It Keeps Enemy Shells off Your Body!)

A ghostly figure in a naval cap puts an arm around a steel-helmeted soldier and points to a ship burning and sinking on the horizon. The text turns a subscription into U-boats and U-boats into shells that never reach the soldier: a one-step chain with no figures for tonnage sunk, submarine losses or the campaign's wider consequences.

- **Date:** 1917
- **Period:** [First World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwi)
- **Made by:** Imperial German war-loan campaign; artist Lucian Bernhard
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [German Empire](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=german-empire)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [German Empire](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=german-empire)
- **Leader:** [Wilhelm II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=wilhelm-ii)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Fundraise](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=fundraise)
- **Themes:** [War and the military](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=war-military), [Economy and finance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=economy-finance), [Home front](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=home-front)
- **Event:** [World War I](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-i)
- **Techniques:** [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)
- **Regime:** [German Empire under Wilhelm II](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/german-empire/)
- **Leader:** [Wilhelm II](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/german-empire/#wilhelm-ii)
- **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- **Source:** [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2004665842/), retrieved September 27, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931) Bernhard, Lucian, artist; Rehse Archiv für Zeitgeschichte und Publizistik, DLC, former owner. 1917. Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-11518.

## Text on the object

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

```
So hilft dein Geld Dir kämpfen!
In U-Boote verwandelt, hält es Dir feindliche Granaten vom Leib!
Darum:
zeichne Kriegsanleihe!
```

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

```
This is how your money helps you fight!
Turned into U-boats, it keeps enemy shells off your body!
Therefore:
subscribe to the war loan!
```

A small printed credit line at bottom right (likely the printer's imprint, 'Hollerbaum & Schmidt, Berlin' per the poster's production credit) is too small to read confidently in this scan and is not transcribed.

[← Reinforcements. Our scrap of paper, honor it. Vote Yes. Referendum (Australia, 1917)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/reinforcements-referendum-vote-yes-1917/) [Das ist der Weg zum Frieden, die Feinde wollen es so! Darum zeichne Kriegsanleihe! (That Is the Way to Peace, the Enemies Want It So! Therefore Subscribe to the War Loan!) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/weg-zum-frieden-1917/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Bayeux Tapestry, scene 23: UBI HAROLD SACRAMENTVM FECIT VVILLELMO DVCI](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bayeux-tapestry-harold-oath-to-william-1070/) (1070 · Transfer, Card stacking)
- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [La paz según el Perú – La paz según los chilenos (Peace According to Peru, Peace According to the Chileans)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/la-paz-segun-el-peru-el-banquillo-1880/) (Jun 12, 1880 · Card stacking)
- [Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans! (Judge)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/remember-the-maine-starving-cubans-judge-1898/) (May 7, 1898 · Card stacking)
- ["A Sacrifice to Aguinaldo's Ambition" (commercial stereograph, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sacrifice-to-aguinaldos-ambition-1899/) (1899 · Card stacking, Name-calling). Content note: Photograph of two dead Filipino soldiers.
- ["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)
- ["Kill Every One Over Ten" (New York Evening Journal, 1902)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kill-every-one-over-ten-1902/) (May 5, 1902 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Blindfolded Filipino children before a firing squad.