Caricatures and the Occupation of Public Space
“Fips”, the Nazi Cartoonist
Known under the pen name of “Fips”, Philipp Rupprecht (1900–75) was the Nazi regime’s most important propaganda illustrator. He began his career in 1925 as a cartoonist for a Social Democratic newspaper in Franconia. That same year, he had his first cartoon published in Der Stürmer, the weekly Nazi hate sheet. He continued to illustrate the paper’s front page until 1945. His visual style would help shape the Nazi regime’s entire programme of antisemitic visual propaganda, with some of his stylistic elements actually based on historical precedents.
What would be a “Jewish body”?
For a long time, the main way to differentiate Jews from non-Jews in visual imagery was through the clothing depicted. But when Jews became equal citizens, there was a new need to ascribe particular bodily features to Jewishness. In constructing the stereotype of “the Jewish body”, it was always in contrast to the society’s prevailing ideals of physical beauty. By 1872, Wilhelm Busch was already depicting Jews as having flat feet. Nazi propaganda further showed Jews as being short, fat, and hunched over.
Where does the “Jewish nose” come from?
The stereotype of the Jew with a large hooked nose had become widespread by the end of the nineteenth century. This helped provide an easily visible marker for distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. There was also an urge to associate Jews with black people, with imagery that frequently combined a big nose with portruding lips. The hooked nose was based on earlier depictions of Jews with bent noses.
Where does the idea of the “dirty Jew” come from?
By the late nineteenth century, antisemitic propaganda was already associating Jews with bad hygiene. There developed a kind of “resort antisemitism” in which Jews were considered unclean spreaders of disease and thus forbidden from visiting spas and other bathing facilities. Furthermore, this myth of the dirty unkempt Jew with a hairy body and a constant five o’clock shadow was often combined with the stereotype of the lecherous Jew. As a result, his alleged advances were represented as particularly repellent.