The Wartime Shockheaded Peter, a German children's book

Description

Heinrich Hoffmann's 'Struwwelpeter' was originally written in 1844 as a Christmas present for the author’s young son. Its ‘pretty stories and funny pictures’ in which bad children receive their just deserts became a huge success both in Germany and abroad. In this ‘Wartime Struwwelpeter’ the various anti-German allies take the parts of the children. On the cover the Kaiser plays the role of the magician Nikolaus who punishes some naughty boys (here the allies) by soaking them in ink. Inside, the unkempt ‘Struwwelpeter’ himself becomes the Serbian ‘Bombenpeter’; Philipp, who fidgets at table, becomes the vacillating Italy; and ‘flying Robert’ who is blown away by a storm becomes a would-be war profiteer who is blown up by a bomb.