History of Sorts

Philipp Rupprecht was a German artist and cartoonist known by his artist name Flips. He was the chief cartoonist for Der Stuermer,a weekly German tabloid-format newspaper published by Julius Streicher.It played  a significant role in the Nazi propaganda and was vehemently anti-Semitic.

Born in Nuremberg, Philipp Rupprecht immigrated to Argentina in 1920 following World War I, where he found work as a waiter and a cowboy on a cattle ranch. He returned to his hometown around 1924 and was hired by the Fränkische Tagespost, a newspaper affiliated with the German Social Democrats. While dispatched to cover the second Luppe-Streicher trial, Rupprecht was instructed to sketch a caricature of Julius Streicher; instead, he drew Nuremberg’s mayor, Hermann Luppe. Der Stürmer published these cartoons in December 1925, and subsequently hired Rupprecht.

Under the pen name “Fips,” Rupprecht served as Der Stürmer’s sole regular cartoonist from late 1925 until its final edition on February 2, 1945—with the sole exception of 1927—producing thousands of virulent anti-Semitic caricatures. While his artistic style evolved over his career, his work consistently relied on grotesque stereotypes, depicting Jewish people as short, fat, unshaven, and physically deformed. His illustrations frequently weaponized moral panic; one cartoon depicted a despondent mother neglecting her child in a bleak rooming house, a portrait of her Jewish seducer on the floor, captioned: “Everything in her has died. She was ruined by a Jew.” Another illustration, captioned “Two kinds of children; two kinds of human beings,” contrasted dark-haired, wealthy, and greedy Jewish families with fair-haired Aryan children playing contentedly with modest toys.

Beyond the newspaper, Rupprecht illustrated two notorious anti-Semitic children’s books published by Stürmer Verlag: Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid (“Trust No Fox on the Green Meadow, and No Jew on His Oath”, 1936) and Der Giftpilz (“The Poisonous Mushroom”, 1938). At the outbreak of World War II, Rupprecht briefly served in the Kriegsmarine but was quickly discharged, deemed too valuable to Nazi wartime propaganda to remain on the front lines.

Rupprecht also did illustrations for anti-Semitic children#S books.His style changed during the course of his career, but his caricatures usually depicted Jews as short, fat, ugly, unshaven, , sexually perverted, bent-nosed, and with pig like eyes.

Below are just some example of his hateful pieces of ‘art’.

A Page from the  German children’s book, “Der Giftpilz” (The poisonous Mushroom). The text reads, “Just as it is often very difficult to tell the poisonous from the edible mushrooms, it is often very difficult to recognize Jews as thieves and criminals”

Illustration showing how jewish noses look like.

His career ended with the defeat of the Nazis in World War II. He was put on trial in 1945 and sentenced to ten years hard labour. On 23 October 1950 he was released from the prison in Eichstätt. Until his death he lived and worked in Munich and Starnberg as a painter and decorator. He died on 4 April 1975 in Munich, aged 74.

sources

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/streicher-fips-der-st%C3%BCrmer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Rupprecht

https://portal.ehri-project.eu/units/us-005578-irn50292-irn8223