The German government instituted nine war-bond campaigns during World War I, in the spring and fall of each year and German civilians of all backgrounds subscribed to them at a higher rate than those in other warring nations. This poster is probably part of the eighth loan, offered in the spring of 1918. Walter Georgi’s rather saccharine illustration shows a disproportionately large German man enfolding his wife and infant with his left arm; in his right he carries a sword. The text is in the traditional 16th-century Fraktur typeface frequently used in subsequent centuries to signify German cultural identity. While this poster was published in Berlin, a variant with the same image was published by the Frankfurt publisher Wüsten. Georgi was well-known in his day as an illustrator for various publications as well as a painter of landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. He was involved in avant-garde artistic groups in the early decades of the 20th century, among them the Deutscher Werkbund, founded in Munich in 1907.
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