Like “It’s Up to You—Protect the Nation’s Honor,” this poster encouraged American men to enlist in the U.S. military. Striking about this poster, however, is its blatant use of anti-German stereotypes as a tactic of persuasion. By 1917, the majority of Americans favored the Allied cause. Sizeable proportions of the population, however, sympathized with Germany. Posters such as this one aimed to extinguish pro-German sentiment by presenting the nation—and its people—as inherently barbaric, aggressive, and inhumane. Here, Germany was depicted as a crazed gorilla that was invading the United States and ravaging its women. Wearing a traditional German army helmet labeled “militarism” and holding a bloody club labeled “Kultur,” the ape suggested the brutality of German culture and urged American men to fight against it. The primary goal of images such as these may have been to convince U.S. citizens to despise the Germany empire, yet they also contributed to fears about the loyalty of Americans of German origin, then one of the largest ethnic groups in the United States. Well over 2 million German-born immigrants lived in the United States; millions more were U.S. citizens of German ancestry, many of them first or second generation. Doubts about the loyalties of these citizens resulted in widespread anti-German hysteria. Many schools banned the teaching of German. Individuals with German names were pressured to buy Liberty Bonds to prove their loyalty. Angry mobs even killed a few German Americans. Anti-German sentiments not only were directed at the nation’s wartime adversary, but were pervasive in American wartime culture.

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