Hans Schweitzer (25 July 1901 – 15 September 1980), known as Mjölnir, or Mjoelnir was an artist who produced many posters for the Nazi Party (

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

) under

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

. In

Teutonic mythology Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to the traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples. With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germ ...

Mjölnir Mjölnir (from Old Norse Mjǫllnir) is the hammer of the thunder god Thor in Norse mythology, used both as a devastating weapon and as a divine instrument to provide blessings. The hammer is attested in numerous sources, including the 11th cent ...

is the name of

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred groves ...

's hammer. He was recruited to produce

Nazi propaganda The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation o ...

posters by

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...

. The posters depicted crude but memorable caricatures of the NSDAP's opponents. A recurring image was of a

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi ral ...

(SA) member side by side with a Heer soldier. Schweitzer was named a professor in 1937, and was named "Reich Commissioner for Artistic Design"Ernst Klee, ''Das Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945'', Frankfurt am Main (2007), p. 560 and chairman of the Reich Committee of Press Illustrators. After the war, Schweitzer remained in the western occupation zone. In the course of

denazification Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...

, Schweitzer was fined 500

Deutschemark The Deutsche Mark (; English language, English: ''German mark''), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" (), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. I ...

s in

Hamburg-Bergedorf Bergedorf () is the largest of the seven boroughs of Hamburg, Germany, named after Bergedorf quarter within this borough. In 2020 the population of the borough was 130,994. History The city of Bergedorf received town privileges in 1275, then ...

. He was boycotted as "Goebbels' illustrator", but nonetheless found work designing posters for

West German West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

federal press and information office and as an illustrator in the

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...

press. In

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

, some of his earlier work was discarded from library collections.''Deutsche Verwaltung für Volksbildung in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone, Liste der auszusondernden Literatur 1948''
Datenbank Schrift und Bild 1900-1960. Zweiter Nachtrag, Berlin: Deutscher Zentralverlag, 1948. Retrieved February 11, 2012

References

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German graphic designers German poster artists Nazi propaganda Nazi propagandists 1980 deaths 1901 births {{Germany-artist-stub