Les Fables de La Fontaine et Hitler

Abstract

I had known several of the designs in this book for years and despaired of ever finding them. Then I found them in the 2010 facsimile reproduction of the 1939 original by Nouvelles Editions Latines. I wrote when I catalogued that edition that I was all the more eager to find an original. I had never had one in my hand. I was amazed to find this copy on eBay and even more amazed when I won the auction. This original was published shortly before the German conquest of France and the consequent destruction of materials like this, materials critical of Nazis. Ten fables are presented with their La Fontaine texts utterly intact. The blurb on the back cover of the reproduction has it right: Cet album, textes et dessins, dénonçait la férocité et la mégalomanie du chancelier allemand. In this book it is the satirical illustrations that make the difference! Several seem to me to apply less well. Among those that may seem to stretch La Fontaine in order to criticize Hitler, I would list FC and GA. Who is that asking Hitler the crow to drop the cheese that is Poland? And I would never have envisioned Hitler as the artist grasshopper needing to ask the ants for shelter…. Several illustrations, though, hit the mark perfectly! Those that seem made for criticizing Hitler have the representations that I have seen and remembered, particularly WL and MM. Hitler as a milkmaid is a riot! Notice the doll or girl lying near the lamb in WL's illustration. The Wolf Become a Shepherd portrays the shepherd as the angel of peace sleeping in the pasture. One that seems more a prophecy than a critique is OR. Who is that goddess that sends the lightning down to uproot the Hitler-oak? OF similarly looks forward to Hitler's self-explosion.