Financing War with War Bonds

The groundwork for Germany to maintain their financial readiness for war was to finance warfare with war bonds (see also further information in the sources on funding warfare).



In addition to proper calls for subscription, the Imperial Government employed a rather sophisticated propaganda. On the one hand they were advertising the financial benefits of war bonds as safe and attractive investments, on the other hand they tried to appeal to the citizens’ patriotic feelings and promoted war bonds as a contribution that was to be rendered by all Germans to ensure a German victory.

Apart from the calls for subscription, advertisements, like this one here, which was placed in the ADAC magazine “Der Motorfahrer“, were meant to highlight the financial attractiveness of war bonds. According to this announcement, war bonds were as sound an investment as passbooks but with five per cent interest they guaranteed higher yields and – being tradeable securities – provided the opportunity of additional equity price gains.

One core element of the propaganda for war bonds was to appeal to perople’s patriotism - hence people from all walks of life had to be inspired with the idea of war bonds. No one was spared: Even school children were targeted to get involved in subscribing to collective war bonds (so-called school war bonds) and to design their own promotional material. An example can be seen here which shows the subscription and honorary card for the 5th edition war bond, drawn by a 16-year old.

One way of advertising  was to demonstrate that military success was a foregone conclusion and thereby war bonds were seen as a secure investment. This method was still used in autumn 1918 when the 9th edition war bond was launched.

The visualisation of Germany’s economic strength placed specific emphasis on different aspects such as the chemical industry which were supposed to shed a better light on Germany compared to their enemies. With alleged objective information about public spending on education and social security both by Germany and by the enemy the promotion of economic stability could be combined with a nationalistic imbued polemic, as can be seen here in this advert for the 9th edition war bond.

Using polemic against the enemy while at the same time whitewashing their own situation was an element of pictorial propaganda for war bonds, like here in a promotional call for subscription of the 8th edition war bond.

This musical rhyme was supposed to highlight the need for war bonds in a playful way.