Les visages de la propagande. Formes et fonctions des portraits dans le magazine Signal 1940–1945

What is the place and function of portraits in Signal, the Nazi propaganda magazine for foreign countries? A pragmatic approach to the material medium reveals their essential role in the interaction between the magazine and its readers, whom they help to capture but also to convince through skillful strategies of authenticating the discourse. From an ideological point of view, these images serve the regime’s propaganda in relatively conventional ways: they contribute to the visual anchoring of the friend/enemy configuration; their dominant positive expressiveness maintains optimism and the mobilization (military and economic) of populations at war. However, there are significant variations from the expected norm: targeting audiences outside Germany, the publication does not limit itself to the Aryan ideal type; several articles offer reflections that stray far from the Nazi dogma of essentializing physical appearance as a ‘reflection of the soul and race’.