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!)
An armoured, spiked fist fills the frame above the words 'That is the way to peace, the enemies want it so!' 'Peace' is offered as the goal with no terms attached, and 'the enemies want it so' places the choice of continued war entirely on the other side, leaving the subscriber's own government out of the account.
- Date
- 1917
- Period
- First World War
- Made by
- Imperial German war-loan campaign; artist Lucian Bernhard
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- German Empire
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- German Empire
- Leader
- Wilhelm II
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Fundraise
- Themes
- War and the military, Economy and finance
- Event
- World War I
- Techniques
- Glittering generalitiesScapegoating
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931)
Bernhard, Lucian, artist. 1914. Library of Congress, LC-USZC4-11524.
Text on the object
Das ift der Weg zum Frieden — die Feinde wollen es fo! Darum zeichne Kriegsanleihe! [illegible — one or two lines of very small printer's imprint at the bottom edge of the poster]
That is the way to peace — the enemies want it so! Therefore subscribe to the war loan! [illegible]
Blackletter uses the historical long s (ſ) in 'ift' (ist) and 'fo' (so); transcribed here as modern 's'. The small printer's credit line at the foot of the poster (comparable to the 'Entw./Druck' lines on other Bernhard/Erler war-loan posters in this gallery) is too faint and low-resolution in this scan to read.
