West Germany's entry into NATO on an Urdu photo page, Lahore 1955

An Urdu photo poster on West Germany's entry into NATO, annotated as inserted in the Urdu weekly Qindeel of 22 May 1955 and filed with U.S. Information Agency posters, catalog date 27 September 1955. Five photographs carry captions such as "A new Germany is being born" and "Defensive strength is the guarantor of freedom" (NAID 6948824).

A poster folded into a weekly

A handwritten English note on this sheet says where it went: "Inserted in Urdu weekly Qindeel, May 22, 1955." Readers of that issue found a photo page headed, in the archive's translation, "North Atlantic Organization: West Germany's participation." The archive describes five photographs: a treaty signing, the French ex-premier Mendes France shaking hands with Chancellor Adenauer, a steel crane over a rebuilt site, a defensive position, and a Belgian street banner for a united Europe.

Poster "German Entry into NATO"

Inserted in Urdu weekly Qindeel, May 22, 1955.

تنظیم شمالی اوقیانوس

مغربی جرمنی کی شرکت

"نیا جرمنی جنم لے رہا ہے"

"کل کے دشمن آج کے دوست"

"تعمیر نو"

"اصل اقتدار عوام کا ہے"

"دفاعی طاقت آزادی کی ضامن ہے"

The archive renders the five captions, in a machine translation it labels unverified, as "A new Germany is being born," "Yesterday's enemies, today's friends," "Reconstruction," "Real power belongs to the people" and "Defensive strength is the guarantor of freedom."

Record and dates

The maker line is the U.S. Information Agency and its State Department predecessor, in the National Archives series Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Two dates belong to the sheet: the handwritten insertion date of 22 May 1955 and the catalog date of 27 September 1955. FRAME classes the source as identified. Audience is foreign public; purpose is "Persuade or win support"; the theme is war and the military.

Selling a European alliance in Lahore

FRAME tags glittering generalities and bandwagon. The generalities are in the captions: freedom, the people, a new nation being born. The bandwagon, in the archive's reading, is in the list of fifteen member states.

The sheet is an argument about Europe printed for readers in Lahore, and its strongest line is the second caption. The captions set reconstruction and defensive strength beside a former enemy's new standing as a friend. The fourth caption, "Real power belongs to the people," is a political claim that the captions state without support; whether the untranscribed Urdu columns support it, the record does not show.

How the sheet reached readers is the part a free press should notice. The poster came inside a weekly paper. Nothing in the file says whether Qindeel's readers were told who supplied the insert, or whether the paper was paid for it.

A 1957 Italian sheet in the same files, NATO 15 Paesi, was also printed as a supplement to a review. The wider program is on the USIA posters abroad hub.