IMPORTANT:

After D-day, many of these propaganda papers were spread over short distances by firing with artillery shells or rockets. These leaflets are mostly of the so-called tactical propaganda type (aims to have an immediate effect on a close by enemy).

There are several reasons why these interesting propaganda items are rarely seen today:

-Due to heavy strain on these papers during airdrops, many were destroyed or heavily damaged. Think about strong winds, rain, snow and other weather conditions. But also ack-ack fire (anti aircraft guns) destroyed many of the leaflets.
-Shelled and rocketed leaflets were especially heavily stressed. Huge forces came to work on the paper sheets when firing the artillery gun and when expelling the leaflets from the shell or rocket with an explosive charge.
-Large numbers did never reach the intended targets. When being dropped out of a plane from great heights, leaflets tended to fall in places were nobody would be able to find them. Think about lakes, rivers, rural areas etc.
-In the early years of the war, a German spreading these enemy propaganda items on to others could be heavily punished. In the later years of the war, Germans were not even allowed to pick up a leaflet from the ground. So it is understandable that many Germans did not keep leaflets when found. Instead, they often did read them quickly and then, just like the German laws wanted them to, turned them in to the Nazi police after marking the leaflet with the word "Feindpropaganda" ["Enemy propaganda"].

These pages can be of interest to many different people. For instance:
Militaria collectors, Poster collectors, Historians and students studying subjects like psychological warfare, Psyop organizations, OSS, PWE, S.H.A.E.F. and similar.
Special parts of this site are on Italian leaflets, leaflets used by the Germans during the Blitzkrieg in Mai 1940, Black propaganda (including fakes) and women on propaganda leaflets.

You will notice that most of the propaganda shown in these pages is ANTI-NAZI (airdropped by the UK/US Allied Air Forces). But, of course, the Nazis used the same weapon of propaganda also! So to make this homepage complete, these Nazi leaflets are shown here also.
A lot of the information in these Nazi propaganda leaflets can be offensive on religious, racial or ethnic grounds. I want to stress out that my pages are NOT an endorsement OF ANY KIND of such discredited totalitarian systems as National Socialism or Fascism. They are rather a resource to make available the propaganda of such systems in order to educate the public AGAINST them. Some images and texts are disturbing. The material is produced exactly from the originals and represents the historical record. To censor it, however, would be to distort the history of World War Two. In sympathy for those distressed by such items, I ask that those particularly troubled by them not to view them. Such items ought, at any rate, to cause distress to anyone of conscience.

It is also possible that a very few of the leaflets / posters shown are not suitable for younger children. Both sides in WW2 did use (most sentimental) nude pictures in their propaganda sometimes!

Some updates:

July 2006:

June 2005:

May 2005:

August 2004:

May 2003:

May 2002: