An Early Indictment of the Japanese Invasion of China, 1931

JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

Here's another bit of graphic design, a very aggressive cover from 1932 for Krieg in China! by Ernst Schneller¹.   Schneller--a long-time KPD member--wrote this short work as an expose on the "war" and in support of the Chinese, published it seems just months after the Japanese invasion and conquest of Manchuria and another few months after the battle known as the January 28 Incident, all of which was foundational for the war that would officially be declared in 1937 (and last until the end of WWII). 

Schneller was himself a persecuted communist intellectual who was arrested became among the first to be imprisoned in the Nazi KZ system in 1933, and who would stay in the system until he was executed at Sachsenhausen in 1944. 

It is interesting to note that in one chapter heading the pamphlet refers to the war as a new threat to the world (“eine neue welt droht”).

Notes

1. Berlin : Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, [1932] 9x6”, 15pp. A little confusing, though it seems that there are only three copies of this book located in WorldCat/OCLC. Provenance, Hoover Institution, and then in 1933 to the Library of Congress.