You may remember we noted that, more than any of the other old tabloids, The National Police Gazette used Adolf Hitler as its go-to guy, its linchpin, a reliable boogeyman they could claim was either hiding out in South America (can you say The Boys from Brazil?), collaborating with Fidel Castro (fascists and commies in bed together, oh my!), or maybe even lurking somewhere in the United States with his uncounted legions of eager killers. These covers speak to the relationship between fear and commerce, the seemingly contradictory nature of people that often draws them to the very thing that upsets them. Not to beat a dead horse, but once again, mid-century tabloids are very similar to millennial cable news. Like those tabloids, today’s cable news often plays on deep, irrational fears. But rather than turn it off, audiences eat it up. What we’re very curious about is whether Europeans, who bore about 99% of the brunt of Hitler’s lunacy, were also later succeptible to these sorts of manipulations, and whether any publications actually took advantage of it in the systematic way the Gazette did. Anyway, we posted eleven Hitler covers before today, and above and below are an additional six. You can see the others here, here, and especially here (Hitler hiding in Antarctica!). We’ll show you more later. Unless you’re scared.
