What do you say, America? is a 1942 poster issued by the Graphics Division of the Office of War Information, numbered OWI-P-2. A cropped photograph of Adolf Hitler in mid-speech sits on a red field under a line attributed to him, "We shall soon have our Storm Troopers in America!" (NAID 513822).
What the sheet prints
The photograph is cropped tight: Hitler's head tipped back, mouth open, caught in the middle of a speech. It is printed on solid red. Above him is a quotation credited to him, and below him a question put to the reader. There is no other picture and no other argument.
“We shall soon have our Storm Troopers in America!”
—HITLER
What do YOU say, AMERICA?
Issued by the Graphics Division, Office of War Information, Washington, D. C. OWI—P–2
Who issued it
The Graphics Division of the Office of War Information issued the sheet, with the number P-2, a low number in that series. The FRAME collection holds companion sheets with the same question under photographs of Mussolini and of Admiral Yamamoto. The National Archives keeps this one in Record Group 44.
The quotation
The poster prints the line with a dash and a name, and nothing more: no date, no speech, no source. The FRAME record transcribes it as the poster gives it and does not trace it. This page cannot say where or whether Hitler said these words, and it does not treat the attribution as established. A reader should know that a government poster presenting an enemy's quotation without a citation is asking to be trusted on that point.
How to read it
The design does not caricature its subject. It uses a real photograph of the real leader of an enemy state, which is a sharper choice than the ape or devil of other wartime sheets. The threat it describes, a party militia on American streets, is aimed at what Americans had and Germany had lost: a free political life without armed party gangs.
The closing question is the strongest line. It invites an answer instead of dictating one. The answer the poster wants is obvious, but the form, a question to citizens, is the right one for a republic.
See the anti-Nazi propaganda hub and its poster gallery, including This Is Nazi Brutality, which also quotes German words. The Office of War Information index lists the other numbered sheets. The Graphics Division answered to the Office of War Information, and the Roosevelt administration essay explains the limit on that office: it issued posters, and it had no censorship power.
Sources
- FRAME object record, What do you say, America? (Hitler), 1942. Graphics Division, Office of War Information. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, 44-PA-371A, NAID 513822, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026.
