An election poster attackingthe government of Adolf Hitlerand promoting theSocial Democratic Party of Germany(SPD) in theMarch 1933 German federal election, the last election in Germany before the Nazi Party banned all other political parties. The headline (“Reward 1,000Reichsmark”) uses a version ofInserat-Grotesk schmal, possibly the schmalfett style ofPhönix-GroteskebyKrebs. The other typefaces are all by this Frankfurt/Main type foundry: the bulk of the text uses fetteMerian-Fraktur, though there are two lines in schmale fetteBrentano-Fraktur. The word “dass” at the beginning of each point is in halbfetteFederzug-Antiqua, and the numeral in “Liste 2” likely is fromFreihand-Groteske. The poster was printed by theOffenbacher Abendblatt, a party-owned newspaper founded in 1874 which had to cease publication shortly after when the National Socialists came to power.
This typography communicates urgent populist resistance — the bold industrial grotesque headline screams with working-class authority while the traditional blackletter body text anchors the message in German cultural legitimacy. The mixed typographic system creates a deliberate tension between revolutionary urgency and established democratic tradition, positioning the SPD as both radical enough to resist fascism and rooted enough to represent authentic German values.
The condensed Inserat-Grotesk headline maximizes impact within constrained poster space while its industrial character evokes working-class solidarity. The Merian-Fraktur body text leverages blackletter's cultural authority in 1930s Germany, making the democratic message feel authentically German rather than foreign. The selective use of Antiqua for emphasis points creates hierarchy while the Freihand-Groteske numerals add urgency through their informal, hand-drawn quality.
This complex five-font system works through strategic cultural coding — the grotesque headline speaks to industrial modernity and urgency, while the blackletter majority text claims traditional German legitimacy that the Nazis were appropriating. The Antiqua accents create visual breaks that guide reading, while the informal Freihand elements humanize the systematic layout, preventing it from feeling bureaucratic despite its structured information hierarchy.