He's Watching You (1942): US security poster

He's Watching You (1942), Glenn Grohe poster

Glenn Grohe's 1942 poster prints "He's watching you" under a German helmet. The FRAME tombstone names no NAID. Public-domain U.S. government work.

Techniques named on the archive record

Fear appealScapegoatingTransfer

Date

1942

Made by

U.S. government home-front security campaign; artist Glenn Grohe

Medium

Poster

Country

United States

Regime

Roosevelt Administration

Source

Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are

Source

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), via Wikimedia Commons , retrieved September 25, 2026

Source

Public domain (U.S. government work) Glenn Grohe, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (1941-1945).

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.

He's Watching You is a 1942 poster by Glenn Grohe for a US government home-front security campaign. It prints the words "He's watching you" beneath a German helmet and eyes, and the FRAME tombstone does not give a NAID.

What the sheet prints

The only words the FRAME transcription records are the three in the title. The catalog describes a German helmet and a pair of eyes, and it notes that the sheet gives no unit, place, or evidence beside them.

HE'S

WATCHING

YOU

Transcription in the FRAME record. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. The tombstone does not print a NAID.

Issuer and rights

The maker line is a U.S. government home-front security campaign, artist Glenn Grohe, dated 1942. The rights line calls it a public-domain U.S. government work and names Glenn Grohe and the National Archives and Records Administration, 1941–1945, via Wikimedia Commons, retrieved by the archive on 25 September 2026. This page does not add an identifier the tombstone does not print.

The sheet is one object in the anti-Nazi propaganda set and in the poster gallery. A different 1942 security sheet, printed by Seagram, uses another slogan and does not show this helmet. "Careless talk costs lives" is a British line, usually associated with Fougasse, and it is not the text of this poster.

Sources

FRAME object record, He's Watching You, 1942. Artist Glenn Grohe. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, via Wikimedia Commons, retrieved by the archive 25 September 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).