STEINBERG'S WARTIME CARTOONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100090021-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: June 30, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE-4
Steinberg '
Wartime
Cartoons
Anti-Nazi Propaganda
Found at the Archives
By Norman D. Atkins
A portfolio of more than 60 Saul
Steinberg cartoons, created for prop-
aganda purposes during World War
II, has been found among recently
declassified CIA documents at the
National Archives.
Steinberg, the widely acclaimed
artist whose elaborate, often bizarre
drawings appear frequently in The
New Yorker, was recruited by Office
of Strategic Services director Wil-
liam "Wild Bill" Donovan to work
for the OSS Office of Morale in
Washington. His cartoons, dropped
behind enemy lines, were aimed at
ridiculing Hitler and inspiring anti-
Nazi resistance.
The drawings were first printed in
Das Neue Deutschland, a German
newspaper created by the OSS "to
represent a fake peace party inside
Germany." OSS files indicate that
Steinberg's drawings were used for a
wide range of purposes; some at-
tempted "to stimulate unity and con-
fidence in the' fight against the en-
emy." One, for example, depicts Hit-
ler's face, behind which lurk skulls;
another shows Mussolini, with one
maniacal eye protruding from a
twisted head. Some of the works,
such as an array -of Nazis atop a gun
turret, have distinct Steinbergian
touches.
The newspaper was exposed as an
OSS ploy by Heinrich Himmler,
then head of the German High Com-
mand, near the end of the war.
Born in Romania in 1914, Stein-
berg studied philosophy in Bu-
charest and earned a degree in ar-
WASHINGTON POST
30 June 1984
chitecture from the University a:
Milan in 1939. He became an Amer-
ican citizen in 1943, and served as a
Navy lieutenant, junior grade, and
an explosives expert in the Far East,
where he was discovered by Dono-
van.
But Georgetown resident Kay
Halle, who worked for the OSS Of-
fice of Morale, thinks that Donovan
may have forgotten about Steinberg
after recruiting him. She recalls that
she kept noticing the artist, in his
Navy uniform, just sitting in the cor-
ridor outside her office.
"What are you doing?" she re-
members asking him, and recalls
that he said, "Nothing."
"When I found out he could
draw," Halle recalls, "I said, `Look,
we need you.' "
After the war, Halle saved many
of Steinberg's OSS drawings, keep-
ing originals for herself and storing
photostat copies in the archives.
Attempts to reach Steinberg, who
turned 70 earlier this month, were
unsuccessful. Since the' war, he has
lived mostly in New York. In 1967
he served as a visiting artist-in-res-.
idence at the Smithsonian.
. A cartoon of Hitler by Steinberg
Steinberg cartoons that were dropped behind enemy lines in World War 11
IF _ Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP90-01208R000100090021-1