# Help Smash Hitler Now! (1943), a soldier's appeal to miners and smelters Help Smash Hitler Now! is a 1943 U.S. Army poster signed Kirby. A drawn soldier with a pistol points back at a tank crashing through a wall marked "Invasion of Europe" and asks for every ton of metal that can be mined and smelted (NAID 514467). - Home - Archive - Help Smash Hitler Now! (1943), a soldier's appeal to miners and smelters Help smash Hitler now! Invasion of Europe Help Smash Hitler Now! (1943), a soldier's appeal to miners and smelters 1943 U.S. Army poster signed Kirby: a soldier points to a tank breaking a wall labeled "Invasion of Europe" and asks miners for metal. NAID 514467. ## Techniques named on the archive record Fear appealTransfer Date1943Made byU.S. Army; artist KirbyMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514467; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) U.S. Army; artist Kirby. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-961 (NAID 514467). Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org Help Smash Hitler Now! is a 1943 U.S. Army poster signed Kirby. A drawn soldier with a pistol points back at a tank crashing through a wall marked "Invasion of Europe" and asks for every ton of metal that can be mined and smelted (NAID 514467). ## What the poster prints The archive describes a helmeted soldier, pistol in hand, turning to point behind him. There a tank breaks through a brick wall lettered "Invasion of Europe." His speech balloon is addressed to people who never appear in the picture: the ones who dig and refine ore. HELP SMASH HITLER NOW ! INVASION OF EUROPE LOOK ! THAT'S WHERE WE NEED EVERY TON OF METAL YOU CAN MINE AND SMELT ! U. S. ARMY [signature:] KIRBY [imprint:] U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943 O - 529012 Transcription in the FRAME record. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514467, local id 44-PA-961, Record Group 44. ## Who issued it The sheet is signed by the U.S. Army and by an artist who wrote only "Kirby." The archive credits other 1943 Army sheets to Rollin Kirby by full name; this record does not, so this page leaves the signature as it stands. The GPO number dates the printing to 1943. ## How to read it The archive tags it as fear appeal and transfer. The transfer is the soldier's voice: the urgency of combat is handed straight to a miner or a smelter worker, who is told that the front depends on tonnage. The fear is in "now" and in the image of a wall coming down. The enemy here is a named man, Hitler, and a named project, an invasion of Europe. That is a sharper target than many wartime sheets offered. There is no caricature of Germans as a people, and no slur. The poster aims at a regime and asks for work against it, which is the honest version of the anti-Nazi case. The record does not say when the sheet was posted relative to any landing. As with the Army lumber poster, the request goes to free workers and stays a request. For the wider set, see the anti-Nazi propaganda hub and its poster gallery. Posters that asked for hatred of the Nazi regime are one of the groups in the essay on the Roosevelt administration. ## Sources - FRAME object record, Help smash Hitler now! Invasion of Europe, 1943. U.S. Army; artist signed Kirby. - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 514467, local id 44-PA-961, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/help-smash-hitler-now-us-army-1943/