Magic at War

In this post, we discover three examples of war-themed tricks invented by magicians to keep their acts topical for audiences and capture the national mood during World War Two.  Doomed Dictators For this variation of a ‘torn and restored’ trick, three printed papers are shown by the magician. One features Germany’s leader Hitler, another depicts Italy’s leader Mussolini, and the third shows Japan’s leader Hirohito. Calling on the audience to ‘boo’ the images of these three dictators, the magician rips up the papers to show his disdain for the Axis Powers. But, in a patriotic nod to the Allied victory hoped for by the audience, the magician restores and transforms the papers, forming a poster of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.  Raw materials to manufacture magic tricks were hard to get hold of as World War Two dragged on. Even paper was rationed. Nonetheless, London-based magic dealer Lewis Davenport & Co. managed to get hold of sufficient quantities of paper...

Wars aren't cheap. Put aside the human sacrifice and the social, environmental and political upheaval, there's also the financial cost. For America - and for many other nations - World War Two was their costliest war. The total bill was almost US$5 trillion (adjusted for today's prices). And, given that the U.S. didn't join the war until December 1941, this money covered just the 3 years and 9 months of their involvement. Great Britain and other nations endured six years of war. While the government might wish to hire a load of magicians to make money appear, that wouldn't work in reality. But, many magicians were employed to make money during the war. Here's how... One way that modern governments finance war, is by putting additional money into circulation. In effect, printing money ('magic money'?). But, putting lots of money into an economy will drive up inflation. To compensate for this, governments sell debt securities, known as war bonds. The funct...