1943.08.25 “Invincible”
by Maurice del Bourgo (1903-1992)
12 x 17 in., ink and tone on board
Coppola Collection
Maurice del Bourgo was the creator of Little Lefty, which started on October 8, 1934, and was by far the longest running strip in the history of the socialist paper The Daily Worker. It ran daily through January 3, 1943. The star of the show was fond of philosphizing at length over the sorry state of the world. And Lefty was certain that a socialist state was the cure.
The cartoon reflects the turning point on the Eastern Front. The German defeat and surrender at Stalingrad (February 2, 1943) was a catastrophic loss for the Nazis, this was the first major defeat of Hitler’s armies and marked the start of a sustained Soviet offensive. The Soviet counteroffensives that followed Stalingrad continued to drive German forces westward throughout 1943.
The Battle of Kursk (July–August 1943) was the largest tank battle in history. Hitler hoped a major offensive would regain Germany’s momentum, but under cover of intense shelling, Soviet forces repelled the attack and counterattacked, permanently seizing the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front. The German army was now on the defensive for the rest of the war and provides the symbolic collapse of Nazi “invincibility.”
