Algemeen Handelsblad Possibly 1941 - 1946

Here is the newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad from Monday, June 23, 1941, a broadsheet filled with columns of dense text and grainy images. I imagine the editor poring over the layout, each article a brushstroke shaping the narrative of a world at war. Those stark headlines, “Fights on the entire Russian border started yesterday”, feel like slashes across the page, disrupting the supposed order. What was the emotional weather like in the print room, setting the lead type for Hitler's proclamation? I think of Malevich and his suprematist compositions – the formal language of abstraction as a way to express radical new ideas. But here, the black squares and lines serve a different purpose: to convey information, to shape public opinion, to control the narrative. The map of the Soviet Union, crudely drawn, with its shaded areas and bold outlines, reduces geography to propaganda. It reminds me of the power of images to distort, to manipulate, to erase nuance. Even the newsprint itself, with its fragile texture and impermanent nature, speaks to the fleeting nature of truth in times of conflict.