2-364-950 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Hansi, French artist, 1930. Hansi was the pseudonym of Jean-Jacques Waltz, a staunchly pro-French Alsatian who produced satirical works mocking Germany and the Germans in the years before World War I, which were widely popular in France. In 1914 the German authorities sentenced him to a year's imprisonment, which provoked outrage in France, but he escaped to France, where he worked as a translator for the French Army during the war. When the Nazis invaded in 1940, Waltz's 'crimes' had not been forgotten and he was badly beaten by three Gestapo officers in April 1941 in Agen, leaving him with injuries that troubled him for the rest of his life. A photograph from Album de Photographies, Dans L'Intimite de Personnages Illustres, 1850-1950, Editions MD, 22 Rue de L'Arcade, Paris 8, 1850-1950.