The Hillbrink Codex: Hitler's Words in Propaganda

About The Banner

The photo on the left in the above banner is that of Herbert E. Hillbrink, an American soldier in the Counter Intelligence Corps at the time of the Nazi defeat and the end of World War II. He was the compiler and binder of the present volume as part of his duties during the Allied Occupation of Germany.

The other parts of the banner are from a few of the Nazi "Wochenspruch" series of popular weekly sayings by Hitler; a series of widely distributed wartime Nazi propaganda posters, of interest to scholars and historians immediately after the war and now.

A collection of original Nazi propaganda posters

From the vantage point of the present, the Hillbrink Codex offers both insight into the propaganda fog surrounding the war-laden German people and at the same time insight into the activities that defined the Allied occupation of Germany at war's end. That is to say, the act of collecting these instances of propaganda says as much about Hitler's Germany as it does about the Allied interest in, perhaps even obsession with, the de-nazification of Germany after the war.

Long before Allied military actions in Africa and Europe began to turn the tide of Nazi fortunes, the Allies had planned to occupy and to govern Germany once the German army was destroyed. A constant flow of officers and men were being trained to take over the administration of captured areas so that local government, industry, agriculture and all that had been destroyed in war could be restored. This was necessary in the first place simply to exercise control over areas to the rear of front lines so that material and signal communications could operate to support the front lines.

At the same time many men were trained, as was Herbert Hillbrink, in counter intelligence to investigate and police captured areas, arrest enemy soldiers in civilian clothing, for example, and to process collaborators and displaced persons. In this way underground activities could be controlled, if not eliminated, so that rear areas could not threaten the peace once restored.

The Allied occupation of Germany was of a similar nature but writ large and with a view to the de-nazification of the country and the restoration of democracy. The unconditional surrender of Germany made this goal possible.

Herbert Hillbrink was appointed Special Branch Officer, in July 1946, at the Military Government Building at 42 Marktstrasse, Backnang, the former NSDAP Kreisleitung, or county government headquarters. This former Nazi government building, as Hillbrink points out in his preface, contained a great number of documents including this series of Wochenspruch weekly Nazi propaganda posters.

At the same time, the Allied Control Council had ordered the confiscation of all Nazi materials that could be construed as anti-democratic and possibly contributing to the development or maintenance of war potential: See "Order No. 4, Confiscation of Literature and Material of Nazi and Militarist Nature" Page 1, Page 2. An amendment to this order was made to allow for the preservation of a limited number of documents for the purpose of scholarship. See Order # 4 Amendment. The result of this amendment is this present volume. The amendment allowed German scholars to have access to these materials, but only under Allied supervision.

Hillbrink's Foreword

From the first days of the Occupation of Germany by the Allied Forces in 1944, a prearranged plan for the removal of Nazi Party (National-Sozialistische Deutscher Arbeiter Partei) influence went into effect.

The major task was to locate and intern those members of the Nazi Party known as the "Leadership Corps." Decency demanded the incarceration for future trail of the high ranking leaders of the German Political Party whose aims brought chaos and misery to millions of human beings. In the execution of this assignment there fell also to the Allied Forces especially trained for that type work the job of removing and excluding from positions of influence that section of German population who were minor leaders or members of the Nazi Party.

In the search for evidence of overzealous and extreme Nazi activity on the part of specific persons, tons of German confidential documents, files, records and propaganda material were gathered and evaluated.

Of the many forms of printed propaganda material seized, one of the best to have been discovered was the multicolored "Weekly Proverb" (Wochenspruch) Poster. Even as late as October 1947, such propaganda material was discovered in the archives of the Government of Backnang County (Kreis Backnang) in Württemberg-Baden.

The Posters incorporated in this binding were a part of the material seized above. Of necessity, only those are included which have been constructed around a phrase or paragraph uttered by the former Leader of the German Reich, Adolf Hitler.

The translations into English of the German Posters, have been made in the spirit and meaning of their time, in the true Nazi sense; thus, a literal translation in many instances was not possible.

Herbert E. Hillbrink
Backnang, Germany
April 1948

The Posters

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944