Nazi Brutality / American Torture

Torture by United States of America armed forces, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 2003.

One of the most disturbing images of recent history was that of a young Iraqi prisoner being tortured by Americans at the now notorious Guantanamo Bay detention facility during 2003. This was part of a program introduced by the United States as part of its post-9/11 so-called War on Terror. It was joined in this by other Western democracies such as Great Britain and Australia. This photograph is just one of many depicting torture of prisoners at that facility. In this instance, the man stands on a box, dressed in a rough blanket or poncho and with a bag covering his head. His arms are extended and electric wires are attached to his fingers. The torture is shocking enough, as was the litany of human rights abuses carried out by the American forces station at that facility over an extensive  period. But the fact that it is being undertaken by the so-called international bastion of democracy and defender of human rights, with official military and administrative backing up to the level of the President, is even more shocking (Catholic Online 2014, Rosenberg 2019). The image brings to mind a famous poster by Ben Shahn (1898-1969) issued in 1942 by the United States Office of War Information and titled This is Nazi brutality. The photograph should perhaps be titled This is American brutality.

Ben Shahn, This is Nazi brutality, United States Office of War Information, offset lithograph, 28 x 38 inches, 1942.

The similarities between the 2003 Guantanamo Bay photograph and the WWII propaganda poster are striking. The latter shows a similarly hooded figure of a man standing in from of a brick wall prior to being shot. His hands are cuffed, and he wears a suit, as though suddenly taken from his home or workplace. The context is provided in the yellow strips of paper with typed text, running across the lower central section of the image. They refer to Nazi reprisals in occupied Czechoslovakia following the attempted assassination, and subsequent death on 4 June 1942, of Adolf Hitler's associate - the noted hangman and architect of the Holocaust, Reinhard Hydrich. The Nazis ordered the execution of all men in the village of Ledice, the transport of women and children to concentration camps for extermination, and the razing of the village. This horrific and barbaric action was typical of atrocities carried out during WWII by the Germans and, to a lesser extent, the Allies. As such, the graphic image by Ben Shaun is powerful and moving. It is now seen as a classic of the genre. However, in a recent auction sale of the poster, the following descriptive comment appeared:

This is Nazi Brutality, the 1942 U.S. World War II (WWII) Home Front poster ("Radio Berlin. -- It is officially announced: - all men of Lidice - Czechoslovakia - have been shot: The women deported to a concentration camp: The children sent to appropriate centers-- The name of the village was immediately abolished. 6/11/42/115P") featuring Ben Shahn art of a shackled and hooded Czechoslovakian man about to be executed. It was created by Shahn for the US Office of War Information as a response to the Nazi-led annihilation and destruction of communities throughout the Czech Republic, including Lidice. It also protests the retaliatory measures taken for the attempted assassination by Czech resistance members of Reinhard Heydrich, director of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, under the Nazi occupation. This poster certainly seems not only "heavy handed" to today's world, but outright "over the top", but of course America during World War II knew that the Nazis could potentially conquer the entire world and they wanted to make sure every citizen did all they could to keep that from happening, and posters like this certainly drove that message home!

I would beg to differ, for the poster is not "heavy handed", "over the top", or, indeed, out of date. In fact,  it reflects the all too common use of torture by government-supported police and military forces around the world, up to the present day. The Guantanamo Bay photograph is evidence of this. Such torture is most common in situations of "war", be they real or propaganda-based, such as the so-called War on Terror and China's ongoing war again non-Han ethnic groups and religious organisations such as Tibetans, Mongolians, Muslim Uyghurs and Falun Gong supporters. In the latter, Chinese instance, a large network of prisons and concentration ("re-education") camps regularly perpetrate torture.

 

Chinese soldiers and Uyghur prisoners, 2020.

Another description of the 1942 poster makes reference to the intensity of the image:

This poster is one of the few graphics produced by the US Office of War Information (OWI), the nation's primary propaganda agency, that referred to a specific war atrocity. In June 1942, Nazi soldiers invaded Lidice, Czechoslovakia, a mining village northwest of Prague. The Nazis immediately executed all male villagers and sent the women and children to concentration camps. They burnt the village and bulldozed the ruins in an attempt to erase any physical reminders of Lidice. The massacre resulted from the town's suspected support of the assassins of Reinhard Heydrich, a high ranking SS officer attacked two weeks earlier in Prague. The Nazis made no attempt to hide this atrocity; the destruction of Lidice was broadcast to discourage resistance. The figure portrayed here represents a villager of Lidice a few moments before his murder. Pushed aggressively to the foreground, this hooded figure stands between an unseen firing squad and a brick corner. The handcuffs on both wrists refer to unseen fellow victims of Nazi violence. While the bold red letters identify this figure as a victim of Nazi brutality, the text below provides further historical context. The typographic design of this smaller text emulates a telegraphic message while also suggesting a rope-like constraint that heightens the scene's intensity. The designer Shahn was a Jewish immigrant from Lithuania who became a well known American artist in the 1930s. Although he achieved success as an artist and designer, Ben Shahn's OWI posters were criticized by some agency administration as "too intense." (Kenyon College 2014)

It is telling that at the time Shahn produced his images, he was criticised for being extreme. We subsequently learned that he was anything but. However, the role of governments in hiding the truth of war, of atrocities and of human rights abuses is ongoing. It seems that they balk at the truth, even if it not their own actions. All of which is suggestive of complicity, as was the case with the United States whereby it publically deplored torture, whilst at the same time, and secretly, carrying it out itself, and preparing legal arguments in its defence.

References

Kenyon College, This is the Enemy: Describing Nazi Aggression in Text and Image [Exhibition], Special Collections & Archives, Olin Library, Kenyon College, December 2014. Available URL: https://www.kenyon.edu/academics/departments-programs/art-history/special-opportunities-and-events/faculty-student-exhibitions/this-is-the-enemy/.

Catholic Online, Shocking sexual humiliation torture at the hands of the CIA, Catholic Online [website], 2014. Available URL: https://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=68161.

This is Nazi brutality, Art Institute Chicago, Chicago, 2020. Available URL: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/194744/this-is-nazi-brutality.

Last updated: 17 September 2020

Michael Organ