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Description

 

As noted on the website for Cornell University's collection:  Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection

A British poster purporting to show the Nazi plan of European conquest, with Great Britain "to be German before 1948." The message is unambiguous: "Grab! Grab!! GRAB!!! That's the Nazi Policy." The support for the poster is a "Secret Nazi Map - circulated in 1937" (not further identified).

In fact, "it is highly unlikely that the Nazis would ever have allowed something as incendiary as this map to be printed or disseminated. It is more probably that it was invented by the anonymous propagandist to lend credibility to his message." Curtis 2016, 115.

Based on the last line of the timeline in the lower right ("Now the policy of 'Grab - Grab - Grab" is at last halted"), this map was apparently issued during the "Phoney War" quiet between the fall of Poland in September 1939 and the invasion of France and the Low Countries in May 1940.

Phoney War

The Phoney War was an eight-month period at the start of World War II, during which there was only one limited military land operation on the Western Front, when French troops invaded Germany's Saar district. The Phoney period began with the declaration of war by Great Britain and France against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939, and ended with the German attack on France and the Low Countries on May 10, 1940. While there was no large-scale military action by Britain and France, they did begin economic warfare, and shut down the German surface raiders. They created elaborate plans for numerous large-scale operations designed to swiftly and decisively cripple the German war effort. These included opening a French-British front in the Balkans; invading Norway to seize control of Germany's main source of iron ore; and a strike against the Soviet Union, to cut off its supply of oil to Germany. Only the Norway plan came to fruition, and it was too little too late in April 1940.

The quiet of the Phoney War was punctuated by a few Allied actions. In the Saar Offensive in September, the French attacked Germany with the intention of assisting Poland, but it fizzled out within days and they withdrew. In November, the Soviets attacked Finland in the Winter War, resulting in much debate in France and Britain about an offensive to help Finland, but the forces finally assembled for this campaign were delayed until it ended in March. The Allied discussions about a Scandinavian campaign caused concern in Germany and resulted in the German invasion of Denmark and Norway in April, and the Allied troops previously assembled for Finland were redirected to Norway instead. Fighting there continued until June when the Allies evacuated, ceding Norway to Germany in response to the German invasion of France.

On the Axis side, the Germans launched attacks at sea in the autumn and winter against British aircraft carriers and destroyers, sinking several including the carrier HMS Courageous with the loss of 519 lives. Action in the air began on October 16, 1939 when the Luftwaffe launched air raids on British warships. There were various minor bombing raids and reconnaissance flights on both sides.

Condition Description
Laid on linen.