The little known history of Mexico’s anti-Nazi propaganda

This article was originally published by Univision.

A 20-year-old Angeleno named Michael Sadri uploaded to Twitter last weekend the image of a poster showing Mexico’s iconic brown eagle devouring a Nazi flag instead of a serpent. It was a hit.

The tweet went viral. So he uploaded a collection of other anti-Nazi propaganda posters that were commissioned by the Mexican government in the 1940s during World War II.

Michael said he uploaded the poster to start a discussion about a little known moment in history and also because of echo current world events, namely Trump’s rise to power and animosity towards Mexico. “I’m not saying Trump is a Nazi, but he is an enemy,” Sadri said.

The posters seem to be resonating with people on social media. The eagle poster alone garnered more than 2,000 retweets and sparked dozens of comments.

Mexico’s participation in WWII was very brief. The country officially declared war against the Axis powers after German U-boats sank a Mexican oil tanker in 1942. Mexico then sent a fleet of fighter jets knows as Escuadrón 201 to fight in the Philippines.

But Mexico’s role in the war was mythologized by a group of artists who created hundreds of posters and political cartoons. The group, known as Taller de Gráfica Popular, was founded in 1937 and commissioned by the government to produce propaganda to glorify Mexico’s role in the war.

The University of Princeton has a digital library with some of the best works of this Mexican collective:

Inger Diaz Barriga is a journalist for Univision, Fusion’s parent company.