Unlike Max Beckmann’s and Otto Dix’s antinationalist imagery, Julius Engelhard’s work defends a conservative nationalism by warning of its greatest threat, the specter of Communism. Inspired by the Soviet Revolution in Russia, left-wing activists mobilized in many German cities, making the case that only revolution could bring an end to the unholy alliance of politicians, aristocrats, and industrialists that had brought on the brutal war. In reaction to this, Engelhard’s monster (ironically playing off the image of the Hun in British and American propaganda) signaled central icons of right-wing paranoia, including the bomb of the anarchist.

— Exhibition label, Belligerent Encounters: Graphic Chronicles of War and Revolution, 1500–1945, July 31–October 23, 2011, Galleries 124–127.