Practically every kid has collected stickers at some point. But they aren't just fun and games. An exhibition in the German Historical Museum in Berlin shows how stickers have been used for political purposes.
Image: Deutsches Historisches Museum
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How the Nazis used stickers to spread propaganda
Stickers have been around in public places for over a century - sometimes carrying dubious political messages. An exhibition in the German Historical Museum is now scrutinizing racist stickers.
Image: Deutsches Historisches Museum
Sticky messages
"Guerilla marketing" is how marketing strategists have labeled stickers that can be distributed quickly, anonymously and just about everywhere. They are also used for branding, publicity slogans and concert announcements - and as a means for spreading rather dubious political messages.
Image: Deutsches Historisches Museum
Political manipulation
The exhibition documents to what extent stickers have been used as a means of political agitation - well before the Nazis exploited them for spreading their racist propaganda. It aims to illustrate just what the omnipresent stickers can do. The anti-Semitic slogans in the picture managed to get stuck in people's heads during the Nazi era.
Image: Deutsches Historisches Museum
Propaganda stickers
The Nazis purposefully used their anti-Semitic stickers in order to spread their hate messages among the people and on the streets. Immediately after Nazis' rise to power in 1933, SA and SS paratroopers pasted stickers meant to intimidate the Jewish population on Jewish-run shops all over Berlin.
Image: bpk Bildagentur
Anti-Nazi propaganda
Jewish organizations and associations resorted to the same means in order to defend themselves against the agitation of the Nazis. Throughout the early 1930s, they continued to fight back with their own anti-propaganda, printing stickers like this one of the "Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith." It reads: "The Nazis are our disaster."
Image: The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust & Genocide, London
Dubious love messages
During the era from 1933 to 1945, anti-Semitic stickers even came to be used for personal messages and love letters. Like political stamps, they often decorated the backs of envelopes so that the addressee would immediately grasp what political attitude the addressor intended to espouse.
Image: Deutsches Historisches Museum
Social glue
Political stickers were also used excessively in Germany during the 1970s and 1980s. Long before social media came to be invented, these little messages embodied the political statements of an entire generation. A large part of the exhibition originates from the private collection of Wolfgang Haney, who collected stickers dating from the late 19th century through the present.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S.Kembowski
Highly topical
Although focusing on the historical context, the exhibition also takes a critical look at current affairs. The debate on refugee policy has triggered the production of stickers, some of which have frightening historical parallels. The exhibition runs through July 20, 2016, and has been put together in cooperation with the Research Center for Anti-Semitism at Berlin's Technical University.
Image: Deutsches Historisches Museum
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They already enjoyed a high degree of popularity in times of the German Empire: adhesive labels, nowadays called stickers. They're simple to produce and distribute, and they've been used to popularize particular worldviews.
That's why the Nazis, among others, used them for propaganda purposes. Stickers continue to be used for spreading political messages today. In the exhibition "Sticky messages - Anti-Semitic and Racist Stickers from 1880 to the Present," the German Historical Museum in Berlin scrutinizes these adhesive labels.
The exhibits mostly come from the private collection of Wolfgang Haney. Born in Berlin in 1924, he has collected artifacts from theNazi era throughout his life. In light of the current refugee crisis, they show frightening parallels between present times and the era from 1933 to 1945.
The exhibition is on show in the German Historical Museum in Berlin from April 20 through July 31, 2016.
