Hansi, the Girl who Loved the Swastika

Hansi: The Girl who Loved the Swastika is an American one-shot comic book, published in 1973 by Spire Christian Comics and drawn by Al Hartley.^[1] It is a story set in Nazi Germany in 1938 that condemns Nazism and Communism and promotes the Bible. It is based on the real-life story of Maria Anne Hirschmann.^[2]

Origins

After becoming a born-again Christian in 1967, Hartley in the 1970s published a series of comics promoting the stories of Christians in the modern world, and decided that Hirschmann's story would fit in with his series.^[3]

Plot

Hansi is a naïve young peasant girl in Sudetenland, who is mesmerized by the Führer and reading books. After the Sudetenland is transferred from Czechoslovakia to Germany in October 1938, she welcomes the Sudetenland "going home to the Reich". She wins a contest, organized by Adolf Hitler, that picks students for special training in National socialist schools in Prague. Her mother is delighted, but warns her in advance to "never forget Jesus Christ". As Hansi arrives in Prague, she is educated into antisemitism, but has doubts since Jesus himself was a Jew. Still, despite people informing her about the famine and horrors of the war she remains enthusiastic about Hitler.

Hansi is also in love with a German U-boat sailor named Rudy, but his parents disapprove of the marriage because she is just a peasant. Since she doesn't want to break him and his parents apart she breaks the relationship off. By now Hansi is so brainwashed that she condemns the Bible as "outdated" and only fit for "cowards and weaklings". As the war progresses Hansi and other people have to evacuate Prague because the Russians are on their way. Despite other people around her realizing that the war is a lost cause, Hansi remains confident in the Führer. She is sent off to a Russian prisoner camp, where she and other girls have to work in slave labor and become victim of rape, except for Hansi who is too skinny to be taken advantage of by the men. Hansi and a girlfriend decide to escape to the American prisoner camps, despite her friend's objections about the USA. They manage to cross the border safely and escape Red Army soldiers trying to shoot refugees. Despite all the misery around her, Hansi still has her faith in Jesus. As Hansi reaches the American prisoner camp, she is amazed how good the American soldiers treat her. As the war is over and Germany lies in rubble Hansi decides to become a teacher.

Then it turns out Rudy is still alive. They become a couple again, but after a year they feel something "is missing from their lives". Hans re-introduces Hansi to the Bible, but she feels unsure whether she can still believe as she suffered through so much misery. Over the years she and Hans raise a family and become good Christians. They travel to the USA, where Hansi wonders whether all the materialism "obscured God's blessings" and made her students "troubled" and "unsure where to give their allegiance". As Hansi takes the flag salute, she is finally convinced about the goodness of the United States, when she hears the phrase "one nation under God", because "it's all right to love what God has blessed". Now Rudy and Hansi decide to promote the Bible to young people and explain the splendor of America's freedom.

Reviews

The Swedish historian Fredrik Strömberg called Hirschmann's story fascinating, but wrote the comic was "questionable" in its message.^[4] Strömberg wrote that the character of Hirschmann was little more than a blank slant, who uncritically follows whatever she is reading, starting out as a Catholic, becoming a Nazi, and ending the story as a Protestant, writing was the comic was "not much of a statement for free thinking".^[5] Strömberg also expressed concern about the message the comic gives in that the women who were raped by the Red Army soldiers were "rewarded" by being killed, saying the comic was highly misogynistic despite having a female protagonist.^[6] Another reviewer complained that the comic was extremely objectionable in it message, citing the line from the comic "Germany surrendered! The dream ended! The nightmare began!", leading the reviewer to sarcastically state in response "Unless you were a Jew, Communist, gypsy, homosexual or dissident, in which case, the nightmare had ended- the authors of this book, I can't believe 'em".^[7] The same reviewer noted that the character of Hirschmann as presented in the comic was "...the most gullible girl in the world! She believes anything she reads, f'r cryin' out loud. She starts off believing the Bible cause it's the only book she has, then some Nazi gives her ANOTHER book so SHE becomes a Nazi, then she hears the Bible's cool again, so she picks that up, then she hears America's cool, and goes there, only it isn't".^[8]

Read More: Comic Art Propaganda Explored: ‘Hansi The Girl Who Loved the Swastika’ | https://web.archive.org/web/20151119145418/http://comicsalliance.com/comic-art-propaganda-explored-hansi-the-girl-who-loved-the-swa/?trackback=tsmclip

References