Propaganda stamps

Psywar.org posted a deep history of propaganda and espionage stamps. The article focuses on black propaganda, "items produced secretly by one nation to be used against another," and features a slew of examples. Seen here is a Hitler stamp parody used as propaganda by the United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II. From "Propaganda and Espionage Philately" by SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.):

Perhaps we should take a moment to define the difference between a propaganda parody and an espionage forgery. In the former, one government will take the stamp of an enemy or occupied government and change the stamp in such a way as to make a political statement and perhaps cast aspersions at and ridicule enemy leaders or occupation forces. These stamps are designed to be recognized for what they are, an attack on the enemy. In the case of the espionage forgery, one government has produced a stamp that is a perfect imitation of the enemy stamp to be used to mail propaganda or instructions to people in the enemy or occupied country. These stamps are part of a secret operation and not meant to be recognized.

Propaganda and Espionage Philately

• [elNico]

  Perhaps we should take a moment to define the difference between a propaganda parody and an espionage forgery

  Nice. Now could we also take a moment to compare apples with oranges?

  BTW, interesting to see that US election campaigning hasn’t really moved on that much in tactics since the time that stamp would have been made. In fact, it appears to go backwards…at least on one side with still enough idiots to swallow it happily.

  Not on topic? Ah well…here’s my once-in-a-while tangent…

• [slywy]

  Interesting example. Hitler had a lot of bad and missing teeth (he had several odd bridges), so his skully grin should be more rotten.

• [stefanor]

  Site seems to be suffering under boing-boing-dotting strain.

  Mirror: http://mirrors.tumbleweed.org.za/tmp/www.psywar.org/stamps.php

• [David Pescovitz]

  STEFANOR @4, Thanks for that!

• [duskiboy]

  for the non-german crowd: FUTSCHES, a misspelling of DEUTSCHES, is slang for ‘broken’ or ‘gone’.

• [Anonymous]

  Hmmmm … hate to go all fanboy, but I wonder if that stamp’s the inspiration for the Captain America villain Red Skull? Or, I suppose, if it was inspired by the comic.