My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.
—Neville ChamberlainSeptember 30, 1938
Why does Mischa Richter's cover art for the American Marxist organ New Masses of December 13, 1938 show France's "radical" Prime Minister Édouard Daladier giving the Nazi salute? Cover blurbs read "French Reaction Runs Amok: A Cable from Paris" and "Who is this Daladier?" Daladier, nearly forgotten today, was premier of the French Third Republic. As such, he was a signatory to the Munich Agreement of 1938 in which France, the United Kingdom, and Italy permitted Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland, those parts of Czechoslovakia along Germany's border inhabited primarily by German speakers. This notorious act of appeasement ceded a strategic portion of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany while only temporarily averting the outbreak of war across Europe.
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Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano before the signing of the Munich Agreement
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Now we can understand the context of Mischa Richter's magazine cover. The original art was sold on eBay in March.
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| Édouard Daladier Mischa Richter Original art New Masses, December 13, 1938 |
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| Édouard Daladier Mischa Richter New Masses, December 13, 1938 |
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| Mischa Richter eBay Listing Ended March 25, 2018 |
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| Mischa Richter eBay Item Description |
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| Mischa Richter eBay Bid History
The winning bid is placed two hours before the auction ends. Another bidder tries to top it three times in the final twenty minutes without success.
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"French Reaction Runs Amok." The New Masses gets it right:
Daladier Arrives Home
Note: Attempted Bloggery seeks scans and photographs of original cartoon art by Mischa Richter and other New Yorker artists.
Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:
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