Simplicissimus, No 51, 16th December 1942, Front Cover

Simplicissimus No. 51, 16th December 1942, 47 Jahrgang. (Years of publication) (The name is a Latin term meaning simplest and is the name given to the protagonist of a 17th-century novel, Der Abenteuerliche Simplicissimuss, in which a naive and innocent boy with the name Siplicissimus, navigates a corrupt 17th-century Europe). Simplicissimus was a long-running political satire magazine published continuously from 1896 through to September 1944, when, as for the majority of print publications in the Third Reich, paper shortages forced it to cease. The magazine was popular and known for its biting satire, attacking bourgeois morality, the church, civil servants, lawyers and the military. During the Weimar period it attacked the politics of the left and the right equally, including numerous Adolf Hitler caricatures, and these continued into 1933 even after the Nazis regime assumed power. However, later in 1933, Simplicissimus underwent Gleichschalting - the process of coordination and Nazification, which forced publications to align with National Socialist ideology and state control. This involved replacing journalists who didn't conform, sacking Jewish or those of non-Aryan descent and ensuring that all content served approved Nazi objectives. Following this Simplicissimus published increasing antisemitic, anti-British and anti-American material which hardened once Germany was at war. Simplicissimus was published from 4th April 1896 to No 37 to the 13th September 1944. The cover picture shows Roosevelt raising the US Stars and Stripes flag while a diminutive Churchill stands beside him clutching the Union Jack while palm trees can be seen in the background. The title and text reads: Henchmen in Africa - A flag is enough to signal our claim to power. Yours is no longer necessary. You can save yourself the trouble, dear Churchill!'. The cartoon suggests that the United States was asserting its dominance over the British Empire, specifically regarding the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, a few weeks before this issue was published. This was a significant strategic move by the Western Allies, and German propagandists used it to drive a wedge between the US and the UK by portraying the US as the new global power, reducing Britain's once-mighty empire to a subordinate role as implied by the smaller Churchill, clutching his Union Jack

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