Screamer (Decisive Enemy Picture) (Heuler [Entscheidend Feindbild])

For Jörg Immendorff the theme of “Café Deutschland” functioned as an allegorical interior setting, a space in which to examine Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, the post-World War II division of Germany, and twentieth-century German cultural and artistic identity. Immendorff developed the theme in a variety of media including prints. Compositions are densely packed with political iconography and feature a vast cast of political and artistic figures. This example derives from one section of a monumental ten-sheet linocut titled Café Germany–Good. It is a unique printing incorporating hand-painted details such as the blue gouache that obscures the left hand side of the image and features an eagle—perhaps a reference to both pre-World War I imperial Germany and the interwar Third Reich. Above the eagle sits a worker on a bar stool, his leg hanging down—possibly alluding to both capitalist and socialist economic systems. Is the enigmatic legend "Entscheiden, Feindbild" (Decision, Boogeyman) a satirical commentary on the impasse of German reunification amidst hotly debated arguments for and against its being a democracy or Communist state?