Map, 'What Germany Wants'

What Germany Wants

 

This First World War poster map features British understandings of Germany's war claims as at May 1915.

 

This poster is part of a collection of First World War posters sent to New Zealand as examples of British wartime propaganda. In 1917, the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa) began collecting war material with the help of the New Zealand High Commissioner in London and the Department of Defence. This particular poster was received on 10 July 1918.

 

The museum intended to collect and display such objects in a planned national war museum in Wellington which never eventuated. Instead, the museum toured over 100 war posters around New Zealand in the early 1920s in the context of increasing commemoration of the war during peacetime. For many, the posters illustrated important aspects of the war and the history of New Zealand's part in the war. This commemorative function was far removed from their original function to encourage enlistment in the streets.