A poster reproduced by Russian War Relief, Inc. from a 1941 Soviet war poster shows Joseph Goebbels as a snarling, tailed, mouse-like figure at a podium under the words "What is an 'Aryan'? He is handsome as Goebbels." National Archives 44-PF-22.
What the sheet prints
Goebbels is drawn small and rodent-like, with a tail, yelling from behind a lectern. The text is a question and a punch line. The imprint at the bottom tells you where the picture came from and who brought it to American walls.
WHAT IS AN "ARYAN"?
HE IS HANDSOME
AS GOEBBELS
[imprint:] REPRODUCED FROM SOVIET WAR POSTER 1941 · BY RUSSIAN WAR RELIEF INC.
Who issued it
Two parties are on the sheet. The image and words come from a Soviet war poster of 1941. The reproduction is credited to Russian War Relief, Inc., a private American organization. The National Archives holds it among World War II foreign posters in Record Group 44, local identifier 44-PF-22. FRAME lists the audience as the domestic public, the purpose as winning support, and tags one device, name-calling.
How to read it
The target deserves the joke. Nazi race doctrine claimed a superior "Aryan" type and used that claim to justify persecution. The poster answers it with ridicule: the man who preached the doctrine is drawn as the opposite of the ideal he sold. Laughter is a fair weapon against a lie that pretends to be science, and this one lands.
The method still deserves a look. The poster does not argue against racial theory; it mocks a face. Turning a man into an animal is the same move the same war's worst posters made against whole peoples, here aimed at a single propaganda minister. Aimed at Goebbels, it is satire. The technique is not made safe by the target.
The source matters too. The image was made by the propaganda apparatus of the Soviet state, a one-party government. The American group that reprinted it existed, as its name says, for Russian war relief. A private relief group was free to reproduce it, and Americans were free to hang it or not. Reading it honestly means admiring the joke and remembering who first told it.
More anti-Nazi sheets are collected on the anti-Nazi propaganda page and in its poster gallery.
Sources
- FRAME object record, What Is an "Aryan"? He Is Handsome as Goebbels. Russian War Relief, Inc., reproduction of a 1941 Soviet war poster.
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, catalog record 44266058 (44-PF-22), retrieved by the archive 3 October 2026. Rights as recorded: held by NARA, unrestricted.
