Propaganda has always been a powerful political tool. It has been used through out time to influence people’s thoughts, by praising your views or opposing your enemies.  Propaganda is very noticeable during wars, and is used by every participant in the war.  The governments use propaganda to praise themselves and their allies or vilify their enemies.  This vilification is attempted both in the home country as well as in the enemy’s.  This is done by portraying the enemy as something horrible, generally an animal, monster or even death it’s self.  Death is a powerful message, and is used in many propaganda posters, as can be seen in World War II. The Allies created posters that vilified the axis leaders, both for at home and within the axis countries.

            The Allies used skulls throughout World War II in their posters to influence people.  Skulls, not surprisingly, represents death and is used in two main forms; the enemy himself, and a result of the enemy.   Both of these strategies were used during World War II by the Allies where they commonly represented Hitler as death.  They replaced Hitler’s head with a skull, which created a statement that there is nothing he can offer but death.  This is very effective, so the Allies used these images at home and the Axis countries in an attempt to sway the public to their side.  The Axis leaders fought fire with fire, and created similar images of Allied leaders, especially Roosevelt.

            More commonly, however, was the use of skulls and skeletons as an object rather than a person.  These images show the Axis leaders as creators of death.  They are generally surrounded by skulls, with an interaction of some form.  The leader can be directly or indirectly responsible for death.  This can be shown by representing the enemy as some sort of weapon, direct responsibility, or just the leader, inciting the public to create death.  Either use of skulls, creates the same meaning; all the enemy has to offer is death.  These techniques are still in use today and will continue to be used until our fear of death is defeated.