Life — September 12, 1918 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Hindenburg's Day According to Press Reports This is a satirical comic strip mocking sensationalized newspaper coverage of Paul von Hindenburg, the German military leader and president. The strip presents a absurdly exaggerated, melodramatic daily schedule of disasters befalling the portly figure—poisoning, blood disease, swallowing orange pits, fatal accidents, military failures, heart attacks, and more—all presented as if reported breathlessly by the press. The satire targets how newspapers of the era (likely 1920s-30s) sensationalized political figures' activities and engaged in hyperbolic reporting. By compressing an impossible series of calamities into one day, the cartoonist ridicules press hysteria and lack of journalistic restraint regarding this controversial German political figure.