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History repeats itself as farce

On the day of the election, MARTIN GOLLAN reflects on the perennial relationship between the far-right and the back-hander

Cartoon by Martin Gollan

When our own cartoonist, Martin Gollan, writes “After Heartfield” he is referring to one of the greatest political images of the Nazi era, created by John Heartfield and published on the cover of the Arbeite Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ) or Workers Illustrated Newspaper, along with the words “Millions Stand Behind Me: A Small Man Asks For Big Gifts.”

At the advent of power, Hitler and his party actively courted German corporate capital, who would both fund and profit from the commitment to war, and disengaged from his base of disaffected military veterans and the working class.

At the time the AIZ had a circulation of 500,000, as big as any other magazine in the country, and the message — that Hitler’s salute was reaching for a hefty backhander from the bosses — was on every newstand.

The £5,000,000 that Nigel Farage received from Crypto billionaire Christopher Harbourne in 2024 was not declared in the Parliamentary Register of Interest and was recently described by Farage himself, without a trace of irony, as “a non-conditional, unconditional personal gift.” 

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