Probably one of the more interesting 'propaganda maps' of the war (and there were plenty), this one was issued by Russian War Relief to 'visualize the almost inconceivable extent of the need for American aid to the people of the Soviet Union'.
Designed by one E. Means, the map imagines an Operation Barbarossa-style invasion of the United States. In the poster, the Germans have invaded the United States from the east, with the names of Soviet cities shown next to American ones to illustrate the extent of real German advances in Europe.
Text at the bottom reads in full:
Russian War Relief, Inc. 11 E. 35th St., New York City, presents this map to help Americans to visualize the almost inconceivable extent of the need for American aid to the people of the Soviet Union. From the vast invaded area of the USSR, here shown superimposed on a map of the United States, 38,000,000 Russians escaped the Nazis in 1941 by fleeing their homes. Strafed by dive bombers and machine-gunning “hedge-hoppers,” they fled across their country before the invaders while their Red Army fought and fell back – fought and fell back.
In terms of the map of America, 38,000,000 persons walked and rode across more than half the United States. They left behind them – besides their homes – the lands which fed them, the mines which fed their factories, their clothing, their hospitals, their schools, their nurseries – in short, their lives. In the land to which they went there was almost none of these things. They built new factories first, ploughed the land second. Now they are building new homes.
Some of the survivors now are returning to homes recaptured by the Red Army. They return to almost utter desolation. They, too, need help. Ten million have died in the fight that is theirs and ours. The Red Army has lost almost as many men, in killed and wounded, as are now in all the American armed forces! Civilians have died – by millions – of malnutrition, cold, exhaustion, disease – and of the Nazi hangman’s noose and the bullets of Nazi firing squads. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet homes are sheltering the war’s orphans.
Look at the map. Imagine the tragedy to you and your family if an invader had ravaged America throughout all that shaded territory on our Atlantic seaboard, westward all the way to St. Louis and Tulsa. Because the equivalent of that tragedy has happened to millions of our Soviet allies, Russian War Relief, Inc., asks all Americans to help keep relief ships sailing.
On this map is shown the vastness of the war effort of our Soviet Allies. The map of the western half of the Soviet Union has been placed (in reverse) upon the map of the United States. The shadings show:
[Brown] A map of that part of the Soviet Union occupied by the Nazis at the peak of the invasion. (The map of the Soviet Union is reversed to compare the industrial west of Russia with the similar eastern area of the United States.)
[Orange] Giant industrial and agricultural communities moved from invaded regions… equivalent to a transfer of the mills and factories of all eastern America to the Rockies.
Soviet cities are in only approximately correct relation to each other, the object being to show their relation to comparable America Cities.