From 1942, the illustrator Walter Trier received several commissions from the British Ministry of Information to design political pamphlets. These were to be air-dropped over occupied Europe. His “Nazi German in 22 Lessons” is a broadsheet with 24 colour-illustrated pages that was also translated into French, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese.

Each page depicts a term in an old-fashioned font and taken from Nazi propaganda, translated, illustrated and accompanied by an ironic “definition”. Thus “Lesson 1” shows the keyword “Peace offering”, which is “an invitation to stop fighting and give the aggressor what he wants, backed by a promise that the aggressor will not attack you again, until he wants something else.” In “Lesson 10” the German-Soviet “Non-Aggression Pact” is revealed to be “A declaration of war”. The illustrations are not signed with Trier’s familiar signature – presumably because he feared for the safety of his family members living in Nazi-occupied territoryn.

The title page of this copy bears a pencil-written note at the top by the antiquarian, publicist and photographer Walter Zadek: “Walter Trier during his emigration”. After 1945, Zadek sought out exile literature on behalf of German libraries and added his own comments to the books he offered them, often with brief information on the respective author

Further reading:
Trier, Walter: Nazi-Deutsch in 22 Lektionen, mit einem Vorwort von Max Czollek, Nachwort und Anmerkungen von Antje M. Warthorst, Berlin: Favoritenpresse 2022.