During World War II, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse weren’t just about entertainment. Film studios used animated characters to spread propaganda and educate Americans about their enemies. And the animators themselves were employed to make insignia for military units and equipment.
“Heil Hitler!” shouts Donald Duck as he raises his right arm in the Nazi salute. On the other arm, he’s wearing a swastika armband — just like everyone else in Hitler’s “Nutzi Land,” where the “Nutzis” have pruned even the trees into swastika shapes and swastika clouds drift across the sky. It’s a land where there’s barely anything left to eat, yet even the rooster greets the day with a hearty crow of “Heil Hitler!”
There, Donald toils away screwing war munitions together on a factory assembly line with soldiers looking on. He has to shout “Heil Hitler!” in time with his work, and his hands whirl faster and faster until he goes insane. Then the duck wakes up from his dream and discovers that he is actually lying in a soft bed and wearing pajamas patterned off the American flag. “Oh boy, am I glad to be a citizen of the United States of America!” he cries. The movie ends with a tomato landing on Hitler’s face.
Continued on Spiegel International…
//
