A wartime advertisement by Mercedes Benz. What’s interesting, I think is the style and approach is similar to many other advertisements, showing the massed ranks for the company’s vehicles (here the half track and staff cars from the company, and the Heinkel He 111 bombers powered by Daimler Benz engines). However, the knowledge that the image is from Nazi era Germany, makes it seem to be a threatening advance from a highly unsavoury period of German and company history, even without the insignia of the party.

Graphically, the linocut look works well, with a classic strong vanishing point to make the image advance on the viewer. While colour advertising was widespread on both sides in World War Two, a good deal of print was black and white, and sometimes low quality newsprint – more often as rationing and privations became harder, so a strong monochrome artwork was very useful.

While I have several copies of this image, one place it’s seen is this website ‘World War Two Film Inspector’, with several more adverts worth a look, such as this one above, a different angle on the same theme above, and a weaker image, though more detailed overall.

And as this is an aviation blog, here’s an aeronautical one from the series, featuring the aforementioned He 111 bomber, an early model, probably pre-war.

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer – Today’s post for Brad.