This study is historical and pragmatic in its approach and examines the first advertisements in German postwar magazines prior to the currency reform in 1948. One central interest of the study is advertising as part of the cultural history of everyday life reflecting the specific living (and survival) conditions and the intellectual climate of the period. Others are the conditions determining what advertising looked like and the intentions of the advertising experts. What kind of advertising was appropriate to a period of upheaval and general (language) crisis? The author indicates the traditions drawn upon and the emergence of new patterns adumbrating 'modern' contemporary advertising strategies.