‘THE PUNCH’ PERCEPTION OF GERMANS, ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO-A CRITIQUE

In Germany Kolonialverein, a society set up in 1882 used to campaign in support of colonial expansion. The British more than a century before the Germans had set their foot in foreign lands and had established colonies. But during the First World War, Britain came into direct confrontation with an enemy with similar aspirations. Invariably the media of that time in Britain picked up the issue and assiduously engaged in projecting the ‘enemy', the Germans in the worst light possible. The general approach of repudiation of the ‘Germans' used to take the form of tossing lexical firecrackers in the face of the Germans. Of course, there were also those who perceived the events on the world stage as part of life's compelling absurdity. ‘Punch or The London Charivari', a British weekly magazine of satire and humour during the war years regularly featured the German war efforts. The target audience of the magazine were mostly literate and the cartoons for which Punch was famous in their caricatures, attempted to denigrate the Germans in general and the German army in particular. The investigator attempted a physical examination and study of a collection of the Punch Magazine which is one hundred years old. The study revealed how the British imperialist mindset was in operation even in the British media. Reading the cartoons from the corridors of time present when Britain is no longer perceived as powerful like the US or the Chinese, reveals how the whole imperialistic enterprise was built on a false sense of perception of own superiority. This presentation which intends to display select cartoons will expose the irony of the British living under the illusion of being a powerful civilization at a time when the German leaders were secretly preparing a general theory of Aryan supremacy which ultimately led to the Second World War.