Politicizing “German Virtues”: The Revolution of 1918 as “Non-Work” (1919)

The magazine Der Simplicissimus supported the German war of aggression until the bitter end. It also rejected the revolution. Der Simplicissimus used work, as a category, to send a message about appropriate behavior during times of revolutionary upheaval. In this 1919 drawing, Wilhelm Schulz stylized masculine, manual labor as a traditional (“old school”) German virtue and guarantor of order; he juxtaposed it with the revolutionary actions of industrial laborers (“non-work”).