Zahhak/Hitler enthroned before Ahriman/Goebbels. The caption reads: ‘Two snakes grew out of the shoulders of Zahhak the wizard and destruction was rained down on the people.’
The Cartoonist and the Demon-King: How the Shahnameh became Wartime Propaganda
The essay by Archie Williams is dedicated to the anti-Nazi British propaganda posters which depict scenes from the Zahhak cycle of the Shahnameh, with the faces of wartime world leaders added to make a political point in the hope of enlisting Iranian support for the allied war effort.
The posters are the most recent donation of John Drake, whose late father Sir Eric Drake collected the posters, the Centre now has almost all (five of six) of the series. Sir Eric spent over fifteen years working in the Anglo-Iranian oil company at their refinery at Abadan, starting as an accountant in 1935 and becoming the general manager in Iran in 1950.