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In the summer of 2021, social media users pointed out a striking and somewhat bizarre similarity between two graphic designs unlikely to have any connection: a 1980s advertising campaign for the Oklahoma food wholesaler Fleming; and a 1930s Nazi propaganda campaign. As one Facebook user wrote: Gotta say, this Hitler Youth poster from the 1930's and this American meat industry poster from the 1980's look ... Similar. The design on the left shows a blond young man, smiling as he stands with one hand on his hip and the other holding a red flag emblazoned with a black swastika. He wears black trousers, a brown collared shirt, and a black tie. The text in the top left corner reads Der Deutsche Student (The German student), while the bottom of the poster reads: The design on the right shows a young man with the exact same smile and pose, wearing a cowboy hat, khaki-colored chaps, white shirt and red tie, and holding an American flag. The text at the bottom of the poster reads America's Meat Roundup: Both of those designs were authentic, and did indeed come from a piece of Nazi propaganda, and an American food advertisement, respectively. Moreover, the 1980s American ad was derived, ultimately, from the Nazi student poster, though the artist who created the 1980s ad does not appear to have known of its provenance. As such, we are issuing a rating of Mostly True. The similarities first came to light in June 1988, when Newsweek reported that Erik Pyontek, a college student from Trenton, New Jersey, spotted a Fleming Companies poster in a supermarket, and recognized the design from pictures he had seen in a high-school textbook: He confirmed his suspicion, then sent copies of the look-alike pictures to the press. Take away the cowboy hat and chaps, change the shirt color from white to brown, substitute a swastika for the longhorn tie, and what does the advertisement look like? A Hitler Youth poster from World War II Germany. The Nazi student design came from a 1936 propaganda campaign and was created by the renowned Nazi artist Ludwig Hohlwein, as shown in an entry on the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Fleming pulled the American meat roundup ads from circulation, in response to Newsweek's article, and a spokesperson insisted the company was unaware of the true origins of the design, telling The Oklahoman newspaper: We are very apologetic. We would never want to offend anybody, and if we have done so, we are deeply sorry. We had absolutely no idea. At first, the advertising agency responsible for it, Sully & Rozier, said the male figure in the ad was based on a photograph of a live model. However, the agency's vice president Jonathan Wood later told The Oklahoman that that was misinformation presented to Sully & Rozier by the unnamed freelance artist commissioned to design the Fleming ad: Fleming fired Sully & Rozier as its ad agency over the Nazi student debacle.
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