Review of "Beasts of the Blood-stained Jackboot: Illustrated WW2 Pulp Fiction For Men"

 Review of

Beasts of the Blood-stained Jackboot: Illustrated WW2 Pulp Fiction For Men, ISBN 9781840686715

Five out of five stars

Pulp fiction as a propaganda tool

 When Germany started World War II in Europe, the actions of the German forces occupying other countries were known to be harsh to the point of brutal. This behavior gave fiction writers great latitude in creating stories about the Germans. In the area of the pulps, the usual fare of scantily clad women was incorporated into the stories of German behavior. The results were a propaganda tool that was also titillating.

 These stories have a general theme of women being abused by monsters in human form and all have phrases equivalent to, “She was now reduced to shivering in fear in her lace bra and panties.” Like good pulp stories, the monsters lose out in the end, although not before they generate a great deal of suffering.

 This book is an interesting look back at how the men’s pulp fiction genre took up the mantle of anti-German propaganda in the Second World War.

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