[HITLER, Adolf.] [In Memoriam card.] Thy Will Be Done.

'Gone to Hell, but Not Forgotten'

[HITLER, Adolf.] [In Memoriam card.] Thy Will Be Done. London: The East London Printing Co, EC3. [1945.]

Oblong 12mo bifolium; silver and black borders; pp. [4]; light creasing and wear to extremities; nonetheless well preserved.

A very rare, satirical mourning card ‘in horrible memory of Adolf Hitler’.

Although the card appears at first glance to be a traditional memorial card, decorated with a cross and flowers, when opened it celebrates the death of Adolf Hitler (d. 30 April 1945), ‘killed by playing with his own intuition! May he rip until he busts’. The cross and flowers design – and the interior layout – had previously been employed by the East London Printing Co. to mourn, inter alia, the Unknown Warrior, victims of the Titanic, John ‘Jack’ Cornwell (killed at the Battle of Jutland at the age of sixteen) and those who lost their lives in the 1929 crash of Airship R101.

Here, a woodcut portrait of an anxious-looking Hitler, his hair in disarray, faces a mock epitaph, ending ‘Now, the Fuehrer lays cremated | Deep in Hell … right near the Grate!’.

OCLC finds a single copy, at Duke.

SKU: 2113344