When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
“Sieg auf der ganzen Linie”
Literally translated as “Victory Along the Entire Line” or more naturally “Victory on Every Front.”
The colorful illustration depicts a confident young Imperial German officer surrounded by three female-presenting figures. The title creates a humorous wartime double meaning: military victory “along the entire line” is transformed into a joke about the soldier being equally successful on the romantic front.
An especially intriguing feature of Hans Leu's composition is the contrasting presentation of the three figures surrounding the soldier. The two figures at left are depicted with conventionally feminine facial features, fashionable hats, fitted period clothing and distinctly feminine silhouettes.
The long-haired figure at right is portrayed quite differently, with more angular facial features and a noticeably different physical presentation, despite the long braid and large hair bow. This creates an interesting element of gender ambiguity within the composition.
The young officer himself is also depicted with remarkably youthful, refined facial features. Together, these contrasting masculine and feminine characteristics raise the possibility that Leu incorporated an additional layer of gender-based visual humor into an illustration already built around a double entendre. Whether cross-dressing or another specific interpretation was intended cannot presently be confirmed.
Through a contemporary lens, Leu’s deliberate ambiguity of gender presentation invites a possible provocative alternative interpretation: two women suggestive of a lesbian couple, an effeminate possibly gay male soldier, and a cross-dressed or gender-ambiguous figure—adding a possible subversive layer beneath the postcard’s conventional wartime romantic humor for which the artist is well know for.
Published by:
Wohlgemuth & Lissner, Kunstverlagsgesellschaft m.b.H., Berlin
Primus-Postkarte No. 1062
The reverse specifically credits the design:
“Nach einem Original von Hans Leu”
“After an original by Hans Leu.”
This example was actually mailed during World War I and bears a September 16, 1917 postmark, adding genuine wartime postal-history interest.
An unusual crossover collectible for WWI Germany, Imperial German militaria, Hans Leu, artist postcards, military humor, gender representation and early 20th-century social history.
Condition: Good circulated antique condition with expected age, corner and edge wear and postal handling. Period correspondence and postal markings remain on the reverse. Please examine photographs carefully for exact condition.
Original 1917 period artist postcard
