Expressionist artist Max Pechstein was one of the most prolific designers of posters and graphics for the government’s Werbedienst (Publicity Office). This was its earliest “educational” poster, designed to raise awareness of the first election of members to the Weimar National Assembly in January 1919. Pechstein draws on familiar iconography to visualize the government’s message, depicting the National Assembly as the literal and figurative foundation of the new German Republic, tasked with writing its constitution. The man crouched in the foreground, trowel in hand, is a stand-in for the viewer; he is ready to build, not bring down, the new government. Pechstein incorporates the red flag of the workers’ movement, signaling the government’s sympathy with the working class, as does the inclusion of “Sozialistischen” (socialist) in the text. The black, red, and yellow flag of the German nation makes its first public appearance above the cornerstone. The man raises his arm, not to incite but to invite the viewer to join his call for collective action.
In a Werbedienst pamphlet titled Das Politische Plakat (The Political Poster), author Adolf Behne described the intended effects of these government graphics, which he called “socialist advertising posters.” These constituted, he argued, a wholly new kind of poster, charged with advertising ideas, not products, to an audience of citizens, not consumers. “Therefore,” he noted, “they must use new forms—and thus bring us new men.” The upcoming election, it was hoped, would do just that, with a dramatically expanded franchise extended to women and the voting age lowered from twenty-five to twenty.
Erin Sullivan Maynes
2022 (adapted from Pressing Politics: Revolutionary Graphics from Mexico and Germany, 66)
