This document provides an in-depth analysis of the symbolism and origins behind an American WWI propaganda poster titled "Destroy this Mad Brute". The poster depicts a club-wielding ape-like beast threatening a helpless woman. The analysis traces the poster's imagery back to concepts of culture vs militarism, depictions of early humans and wild men, stories of primates abducting women, and influences from statues, films, and other popular culture sources. It seeks to understand how the poster used dehumanizing symbols of Germany as an ape-like beast to encourage enlistment in fighting WWI.

1. “Destroy this Mad Brute”
A WWI propaganda poster that
sits at the crossroads of art,
history, and anthropology
By Jim R. McClanahan

2. Part 1
The Symbolism and Meaning
of the “Mad Brute”

3. Introduction
• American WWI poster
• Painted by H.R. Hopps
(1869-1937)
• Circa 1917
• Symbolism
• Bloody Club
• Military helmet
• Helpless woman
• Ape-like beast

4. • The New York Times article
“Culture Vs. Kultur” (11-8-1914)
explains:
• “Culture” refers to scholarship,
letters, and art.
• Accomplished individuals are
revered by the state.
• “Kultur” refers to a nation’s
military and industrial efficiency.
• The individual is subordinate
to the state.
The Bloody Club

5. The Bloody Club – cont’d
• Nations with strong Culture are
doomed to be conquered by those
with strong Kultur.
• “The Spartans and Macedonians
had abundant Kultur; they generally
beat the Athenians, who had merely
very high culture. The Romans had
Kultur, and the Hellenistic world
wore their yoke. Germany unques-
tionably has admirable Kultur, and
none of the mere cultured nations
who are leagued against her could
hope to beat her singly.”
• This club is symbolic of
Germany’s threat to America.

6. The Military Helmet
• The Pickelhaube (“spiked
helmet”) worn by the German
and Prussian military.
• Marked “Militarism”.
• “The belief or desire of a
government or people that a
country should maintain a
strong military capability
and be prepared to use it
aggressively to defend or
promote national interests”.
• Symbol for the powerful
German military complex.

7. The Helpless Woman
• The woman is a symbol
for Lady Liberty.
• A secular figure based on
the Greco-Roman deity
Libertas.
• Personification of
Liberty.
• Known in the US as
“Columbia”.
• Helpless depiction differs
from her normal portrayal
as a symbol of strength.

8. “Liberty Leading the People”, Eugène Delacroix, 1830

9. • The Libertas Americana
medal memorializing
the Revolutionary War
(1775–1783)
• Proposed by
Benjamin Franklin
in 1782.
• Depicts the warrior
goddess Athena
(France) defending
baby Hercules
(America) from a lion
(Britain).
• Possibly the
earliest example of
a deity symboliz-
ing the liberty of
America.

10. • “Statue of Freedom”, Thomas
Crawford, 1857–1862.
• Has crowned the dome of the
Capital Building in Washington,
D.C. since 1863.
• Depicts Liberty wearing a war helmet
and bearing a sword and shield.
• Draws on classical iconography
associated with the warrior
goddesses Athena and Bellona.
• WWI propaganda posters borrow this
imagery and depict Liberty holding
• Swords
• Shields
• American flags

11. 1916 poster 1917 poster

12. 1917 posters

13. 1918 poster

14. The Ape-like Beast
• Symbolic of the Ger-
man soldier(s).
• Depicted as a generic
ape.
• Could be a gorilla
or a chimp.
• Extreme form of “other-
ing” that divorces Ger-
mans from humanity.
• Dehumanizing them
makes them an easier
target.

15. Reading the poster
• The Germans will finish
destroying Europe (the ruins
seen in the background) .
• They will sail across the
Atlantic and invade America
(the club-wielding ape
stepping onto the shore).
• The Germans will rape our
liberty (the helpless woman).
• But all of this can be avoided
if able-bodied men “ENLIST”
to help “DESTROY THIS
MAD BRUTE”.

16. • Australian WWI
poster
• Circa 1918
• Question mark
may represent
the question:
“What will
happen if
nothing is done
to stop the
Germans?”
Later Examples

17. • German WWI
poster
• “Misery and
destruction
follows anarchy”
• 1918
• Depicts
anarchists as a
monstrous ape
with weapons

18. • American WWII
poster
• Circa 1942-
1945
• Part of an anti-
war gossip
campaign
• Depicts the
Japanese as a
chimpanzee

19. Part 2
Tracing the origin of the
“Mad Brute”

20. Ties to Race
• Prior propaganda compares Germany to
Africa.
• A 1915 report on German atrocities:
“[Makes a] terrible indictment against a so-
called Civilized Power—and one, more-
over, whose home is not in ‘Darkest Africa,’
but in the very heart of enlightened
Europe.”
• Meant to highlight the difference be-
tween the “savage” and the “civilized.”
• Plays on then current ideas about
superiority and race.
• The “Mad Brute” thus represents the
final stage of de-evolution: Civilized
Man  Savage  Beast.A 1915 cartoon depicting the
German emperor as an African.

21. Ties to Evolution and Images of Early Man
• La Chappelle-aux-Saints, the first
complete Neanderthal skeleton, was
discovered in France in 1908.
• Marcellin Boule analyzed the
specimen and described it as a
hunched over primitive.
• This analysis was flawed since the
“Old Man” was disease-ridden.
• Boule commissioned an illustration
(left) that depicted him as a club-
wielding ape-man.
• This appeared in the Illustrated
London News in 1909.

22. The complete illustration.

23. • Such depictions of early man
are based on the pre-Darwin-
ian idea that man evolved
from apes.
• First suggested by Lucilio
Vanini (1585 – 1619).
• The French novel Paris Before
Man (1861) describes a savage,
ape-like ancestor who brand-
ishes a flint axe.
• The novel’s front piece (left)
illustrates this “Fossil Man”
with the hairy body, elongated
face, and grasping feet of an
ape.The Fossil Man

24. 15th-c. woodblock print
• Stories of club-wielding “Wild
Men” (woodwose) have circu-
lated in Europe for centuries.
• Often appear in French and
German Renaissance art (both
religious and secular).
• Early examples depict them
abducting women.
• Often associated with the lust-
ful half-man-half-animal Satyr
or Faun from Greco-Roman
mythology.
Ties to the Wild Man

25. Ivory casket depicting a knight killing a
Wild Man, France, c. 1325-1350.

26. Ivory casket depicting a knight rescuing a
maiden from a Wild Man, France, c. 1325-1350.

27. “Decretals of Gregory IX
with glossa ordinaria”
(a.k.a., the 'Smithfield
Decretals'), France, c.
1340.
• This religious text
contains narrative art
in the margins.
• Depicts a story of a
maiden being abduct-
ed by a Wild Man and
then rescued by a
knight.
• 1. (Left) the abduction .

28. 2. The Wild Man carries the maiden* off.
* The unknown artist changes the color of the dress in each scene.

29. 3. The maiden breaks free and threatens the Wild
Man with a stick.

30. 4. The Wild Man grabs the maiden again.

31. 5. A knight comes to the maiden’s rescue.

32. 6. The knight delivers the Wild Man a death blow.

33. • Wild Men became symbols of
heroic strength in Germany
starting around 1500.
• Considered embodi-
ments of raw power.
• Motif glorifies Northern
European barbarian
culture.
• Often depicted supporting a
family coat of arms.
• (Left) detail featuring
Wild Men from “Portrait
of Oswolt Krel”, Albrecht
Durer, 1499.

34. The Wild Men are used here to embody the power of
Oswolt Krel, a rich and “rowdy” German merchant .

35. Ties to ancient depictions of primates
• Scholars suggest that the Wild Man
is based on vague memories of
primate sightings from centuries
past.
• Artifacts and travel accounts
usually anthropomorphize apes
and monkeys.
• Depicted with human features
and/or proportions.
• Described with nouns like
“man”, “woman”, and
“people”.
• Considered savage races of
men.A bipedal-walking gorilla

36. • 700 BCE – A silver bowl
with Egyptian designs
depicts two ape-like
creatures being subjugated
by human hunters.
• Discovered in the
Bernardini Tomb of
Praeneste, Italy in 1896.
• The primates have human
proportions and are
depicted holding each
other.
• Various scholars have
described them as gorillas,
baboons, or chimpanzees.
This bowl contains one of the oldest
known depictions of primates.

37. Detail showing the ape-like figures.

38. 470 BCE – Hanno the Navigator writes of gorillas
“On the third day after our departure thence, having sailed by
those streams of fire, we arrived at a bay [in Sierra Leone] called
the Southern Horn; at the bottom of which lay an island like the
former, having a lake, and in this lake another island, full of
savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose
bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillae.
Though we pursued the men we could not seize any of them; but
all fled from us, escaping over the precipices, and defending
themselves with stones. Three women were however taken; but
they attacked their conductors with their teeth and hands, and
could not be prevailed upon to accompany us. Having killed
them, we flayed them, and brought their skins with us to
Carthage. We did not sail farther on, our provisions failing us.”

39. Origin of the Mad Brute’s club
• Jane Goodall is heralded as the first
person to discover chimpanzees using
sticks and rocks as tools in 1960.
• Yet, three Portuguese Jesuit priests active
in Sierra Leone recorded such tool use
during the 16th- and 17th-centuries.
• Two of these accounts mention the ape’s
proficiency in stick fighting.
• Chimps normally fight via biting
and slapping, however.
• This rare behavior must have struck a
cord with the priests due to its similarity
to human fighting.
• One account refers to it as “fencing”.

40. 1615 – Manuel Alvares writes:
“The smaller animals include the dari
[chimpanzee], which is amusing to see
though one cannot admire its appear-
ance. This creature is almost human.
Even though it does not normally walk
upright, its face, eyes, nose, mouth and
other parts are more like those of a
human being than those of a beast.
[…]
They are great fencers, and when they
meet any human being they go
through the motions very enthusias-
tically. Ten or eleven years ago, a dari
met certain blacks of Tombo, a village
of the Boulons, and when it caught one
of the men it gave him a hiding with a
stick.”

41. 1625 - Andre Donelha writes:
“There are monkeys of different shapes
and colors. Daris have the size and appear-
ance of a human being.
[…]
It is a certain fact and happens in the
[Sierra Leone], that if any man passes by
where these daris are, one of them comes to
meet him with two pieces of wood in its
hands, one green, and the other dead, and
it gives the dead wood to the man and they
begin to fight with the sticks, and when the
dead stick snaps the dari is left with the
green one. And the man must turn on his
heels and save himself; the dari will let
him go, giving out great bursts of laughter
in [the] monkey way.”

42. Video of chimpanzees fighting with sticks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ3gOCtoK0U

43. • Pictures of chimps with
sticks began to appear in
scientific illustrations by at
least the 17th-century.
• This established the
stick as part of the ape’s
normal behavior in the
public eye.
• (Left) a 1699 engraving of
Edward Tyson’s “Pygmy”.
• A “missing link” that
turned out to be a
juvenile chimpanzee.
• This association influenced
later depictions of Linnaean
classification.

44. An engraving of four species of human-like apes
from Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Natura (1735).

45. Eastern Examples
• The Hindu monkey god
Hanuman is commonly
associated with a club.
• The weapon, however, does
not appear in the epic in
which he plays a large role,
the Ramayana (4th-century
BCE).
• Coins from the 12th-century
show that he was associated
with the club by this time.
• Weapon of choice for
strong warriors.

46. • The Chinese literary
figure Sun Wukong, the
Monkey King, fights with
a magical staff.
• He uses the weapon to
guard a Buddhist monk
against demons in the
novel Journey to the West
(1592).
• A 13th-century version of
the novel sees him using
two types of staves.
• Based on the two
kinds carried by
religious and warrior
monks.

47. • Ancient Chinese tales claim that white apes (gibbons) liked to
abduct women to make them their concubines.
• A stone coffin (above) from the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE)
depicts two men hunting an ape who keeps a woman in a cave.
• Greek naturalist Aelian (3rd-cent. CE) wrote that the Indian people
kill a red ape (orangutans) for being an adulterer who is fond of
women.
Origin of the Mad Brute’s taste for women

48. • Stories of orangutans and
other apes carrying off human
woman become common
folklore in the Western world,
especially during the 17th-19th
centuries.
• (Left) “The Orang-Outang
carrying off a Negro
Girl”, 1795
• Feeds into fears of miscegena-
tion.
• Chimpanzees (Pan troglo-
dytes) were placed in the
genus Pan since their
supposed lust for woman
recalled the Greek god of that
name.

49. 1594 – Andre Alvares de Almada writes about the
chimpanzee’s fondness for human woman:
“In [Sierra Leone] there lives a kind of monkey not found elsewhere in
Guinea; they are called daris, and have no tail, and if they were not hairy it
would be possible to declare that they were human like ourselves, for in
other respects there is little difference […]
They are fond of the conversation of young women, and if they meet any
who have lost their way and are alone, they seize them and carry them off
with them, and give them many caresses in their fashion. “

50. 1762 – The naturalist Count Georges
Buffon (left) cements the image of
the chimpanzee as a club-wielding
beast with a taste for human
woman.
“[A chimpanzee is a] monkey as tall,
as strong as Man, as passionate for
females as Women, a monkey that
can carry weapons, that can use
stones to attack, and clubs to defend
himself and that resembles Man
more than the Pithecus [gorilla and
orangutans], as he has a kind of a
face with traits close to Man.”

51. • Primatologist Frans de
Waal disregards tales of
apes raping woman as
“horror fiction” since only
apes raised around
humans show any
attraction to them.
• Such tales inspired
Emmanuel Frémiet to
create a statue (left)
depicting a woman being
abducted by a gorilla.
• “Gorilla carrying off a
woman” won a gold medal
at the Paris Salon of 1887.

52. The statue most likely
influenced the poster.

53. Part 3
Ties to popular
culture

54. • The statue influenced the poster for one of the first monster films,
Der Golem (1920).

55. • Der Golem contains one of the first instances of the “monster
carrying girl” trope.

56. • The imagery of an ape abduct-
ing a woman was used in
Ingagi (1930), an exploitation
film marketed as an ethno-
graphic documentary.
• Depicts woman being
given to sacred gorillas as
sex slaves.
• Ingagi was a major influence
on the hugely successful
monster film King Kong (1933).
• King Kong popularized the
image of gorillas lusting after
human women in popular
culture.

57. • It’s possible that the film was also
influenced by the New York Times
article “British Official Rediscovers
Race of Giant Gorillas” (8-27-1922).
• The article mentions a race of
nine foot tall gorillas associated
with the disappearance of
women and children.
• King Kong is responsible for
popularizing the aforementioned
“monster carrying girl” trope.
• Monster films from the 1940’s
through the 1960’s often depict dark,
bulky monsters carrying women.
• Nod to their simian forbearers.

63. • The film Planet of the Apes (1968) saw a role reversal wherein
mankind was the “Mad Brute” who had savaged “Lady Liberty”.
• The Ape characters are considered morally superior to Man.

64. • The film Planet of the Apes (1968) saw a role reversal wherein
mankind was the “Mad Brute” who had savaged “Lady Liberty”.
• The Ape characters are considered morally superior to Man.
YOU MANIACS!
YOU BLEW IT UP!

65. Speaking of role reversals …

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68. Bibliography
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