De Dollarpoliep [The Dollar Octopus]

“Roosevelt miscalculated! The tentacles of the Dollar Octopus are being cut. “

This eye-catching (albeit mendacious) representation of U.S. foreign policy was designed by Dutch (and Nazi) artist Louis Manche and published in 1942, after approval by the ‘Department of Popular Education and the Arts’ in the German-occupied Netherlands. The use of the octopus motif, usually generally to depict the insidious spread of ‘Eastern’ ideas, instead reflects the insatiable greed of the capitalist West.

The Western Hemisphere, including portions of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is presented as the victim of an avaricious ‘dollar’ octopus; tentacles extended and reflecting American influence and protection. The British Empire and Lend-Lease relations with Latin America are included. The Philippines and Alaska have been ‘cut-off’ (literally and metaphorically) from the body of the beast, while pressure from Axis land and sea forces threaten other appendages.

Bold text, in Dutch, translates as follows: “Roosevelt miscalculated! The arms of The Dollar Octopus are cut off. The Jews in the White House and the gold in Fort Knox are surrounded by the young nations, by the armies of labor.”

Holding at the International Insitute of Social History; Further information is available on a similar map at the P.J. Mode Persuasive Cartography Collection at Cornell University