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“Fingers of Fate – The Tightening Grip” by Unknown, ca. 1916. During World War I, European postcard publishers used photomontage to fan the flames of patriotism on both sides of the conflict. A postcard issued in Munich in 1914 shows a towering German infantryman pounding together the heads of three soldiers of the Triple Entente – France, England, and Russia – in what the caption calls a “powerful collision.” A few years later, an English publisher countered with a card on which a giant hand, its wrist and fingernails adorned with official portraits of the Allied leaders, crushes Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II in a “tightening grip”. (Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
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