Hitler's War ─ World War II As Portrayed by Signal, the International Nazi Propaganda Magazine

The first issue of Signal magazine, Germany’s biweekly army propaganda publication, hit the newsstands in April of 1940. The magazine’s readership grew dramatically as the Nazi empire expanded across Europe, and by 1943 its circulation was roughly 2.5 million. At its outset, Signal was brashly optimistic, packed full of photographs celebrating the Third Reich’s triumph over its enemies—but the last issue would appear on April 12, 1945, just weeks before the Reich’s surrender. In Hitler’s War, historian Jeremy Harwood charts the downfall of the Nazi regime through the lens of Signal magazine, from the heady days of the Blitzkrieg—when a German victory seemed to be just around the corner—to the way the publication faced up to the Reich’s ultimate decline and fall. Harwood’s fascinating commentary supplements reproduced page spreads from actual issues of the magazine, placing modern analysis next to authentic period writing from the German military. As the tide of war swings inexorably against Nazi Germany, with no more victories to celebrate, Harwood traces the shifting of Signal’s editorial emphasis from confident news and gossip to desperate, sensationalist heroism. Offering a brand-new window into the Third Reich’s public strategy, Hitler’s War puts the magazine content into accurate historical context, showing how, after 1943, the picture of Nazi Germany that Signal presented was ever more increasingly at odds with reality.