In his memoirs, Speer called the “dome of light” his loveliest creation, and indeed the clever installation made a lasting impression even on foreign spectators. The British ambassador, Nevile Henderson, compared it to being in the interior of a cathedral made of ice.64 To the sound of fanfares, Hitler, accompanied by Reich Organisational Director Robert Ley, strode through the broad centre aisle to the “Führer stage.” When illuminated, it looked like an oversized altar, and upon it the high priest of the movement celebrated his mass. The elevation of Hitler to a charismatic saint and an enlightened messiah was never as palpable as in the liturgy of this night-time “hour of consecration.” In 1936, Robert Ley called out: “We believe in Our Lord in heaven, who created us, who directs and protects us, and who sent you to us, my Führer, so that you could liberate Germany. That is what we believe, my Führer!”65
The sixth day belonged to the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. More than 50,000 boys and girls gathered in the morning on the main arena of the old sports stadium to pay tribute to the Führer. “No sooner did the command ‘At ease’ come than a thunderous roar of tens of thousands of voices went up,” the official report from 1938 related. “Everyone was allowed to express what they felt. It was as though the air was vibrating.”66 Three years earlier, at the same site, Hitler had proclaimed his ideals for Germany’s youth: “fast as greyhounds, tough as leather and hard as Krupp-forged steel.”67 Reich Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach swore an oath of loyalty to the Führer on behalf of the entire Hitler Youth, and after a short address by Hitler, Hess administered the oaths to be taken by all young people who aspired to join the party. The ceremony concluded with Hitler, Schirach and Hess walking through the ranks before driving in a car through the stadium, bathing in the applause from the stands.
On the morning of the seventh day, the SA and SS turned out for roll call in the expansive Luitpold Arena. “Heil, my men!” was Hitler’s greeting. “Heil, my Führer!” came the answer from 100,000 throats.68 This ceremony was rather problematic in 1934, since the Night of the Long Knives had taken place only a couple of months beforehand. “There was considerable tension in the stadium and I noticed that Hitler’s own SS bodyguard was drawn up in force in front of him, separating him from the mass of the brown-shirts,” wrote Shirer.69 In subsequent years, the situation relaxed, and the ceremony in the Luitpoldarena, like the other rally events, followed a predetermined ritual. To the sounds of mournful music, and accompanied by SA Chief of Staff Lutze and Reichsführer-SS Himmler a respectful distance behind him, Hitler made his way across the “Street of the Führer” to the memorial monument, where he stood for a long time, silent, before the “blood banner.” It was an image that more than any other symbolised the isolated special position of the charismatic leader among the rows and columns of his followers. Hitler then retraced his steps to the stage, followed by the bearers of the “blood banner.” After an address in which he praised the SA and SS as the “best political fighting troops of the German people,”70 and after the singing of the German national anthem, he consecrated the new standards of party formations by touching them with the “blood banner.” “An almost religious ceremony with a fixed, never-changing tradition,” commented Goebbels.71 This was followed by an hours-long march past the Führer, standing in an open car, on Adolf-Hitler Platz.
The eighth and final day of the rally was dominated by Wehrmacht exercises. It began with a morning reveille and a trio of open-air concerts on Nuremberg’s three largest squares. That afternoon, soldiers demonstrated the state of German armaments on Zeppelin Field in front of jam-packed stands and before the eyes of foreign diplomats and military attachés. “A grandiose picture of our Wehrmacht,” wrote a satisfied Goebbels about the presentation in 1936. “All branches of the military get their due. Marvellous flying formations…tanks, artillery, cavalry…wonderful and a joy to behold.”72 In later years, this military spectacle was supposed to take place on the gigantic, specially designated field at one end of the rally grounds, but like the other grotesquely proportioned construction projects envisioned in Nuremberg, work was halted by the Second World War. The rally came to an end with a programmatic speech by Hitler. Around midnight, the Wehrmacht music corps and marching bands closed the ceremonies with a Grand Tattoo.
The centrepiece of the Nuremberg rallies was always Hitler. He was lead actor, master of ceremonies and high priest all rolled into one. The perfectly drilled choreography was focused exclusively around him. For the four to eight days of the rallies, he was utterly in his element. He held fifteen to twenty addresses, sometimes as many as four in one day. The rallies were the perfect opportunity to indulge his monomaniacal need to speak. He experienced the week-long event in a state of ecstasy, almost intoxication, and there was inevitably a feeling of emptiness when it was over. The day afterwards, he confessed in January 1942, more than three years after the final Nuremberg rally, had always had “something sad like when the decorations are taken down from the Christmas tree.”73 The Nuremberg rally in 1939, which was supposed to be held under the slogan “The Party Conference of Peace,” was cancelled in late August amidst preparations to invade Poland.
On the other hand, the Nuremberg rallies were physically exhausting. Hitler later recalled that the hardest part had been standing at attention with a raised arm for hours as his followers marched past him: “A couple of times, I got dizzy.”74 At the end of every ceremony, Goebbels would find him lying exhausted on the sofa of his hotel room. “He has given everything he had,” the propaganda minister noted in 1936. “He’ll have to take a break.”75 That year was particularly trying since Hitler also had to attend a “Memorial Party Conference” in Weimar as well as the Olympic Summer Games in Berlin. His entourage pleaded with him to cancel the Nuremberg rally for that year, but he adamantly refused.76
After each rally, Hitler assembled his paladins for a post-mortem of the event. He handed out praise and criticism and made suggestions for the future. But he was unwilling to change the sequence of ceremonies once it had been set. While he was alive, he told Speer in 1938, the “form” had to become “an immutable rite.” As he explained: “Then no one will be able to change it later. I am afraid that those who come after me will feel the urge to change things. Some future Führer of the Reich may not have my talents, but this framework will support him and give him authority.”77 Here, too, Hitler articulated fears that he would die young and that his work might not survive him. The consecration of rituals was his way of lending potential successors something of his own charisma and establishing the Third Reich for the long term.
The mass spectacle of the Nuremberg rallies had the desired effect on both German and foreign observers. The French ambassador, François-Poncet, who attended the 1937 rally, recalled:
Amazing and indescribable was the atmosphere of general enthusiasm into which the ancient city was submerged, that unique intoxication that seized hundreds of thousands of men and women, the romantic excitement, mythic ecstasy, a kind of holy madness. During those eight days Nuremberg…was a city under a magic spell—one could almost say a city transported to an altogether different world.78
In retrospect, British Ambassador Henderson opined that no one could claim to be fully acquainted with the Nazi movement without having attended and soaked in the atmosphere of a Nuremberg rally.79
Even as sceptical an observer as William Shirer would write in late 1934: “You have to go through one of these to understand Hitler’s hold on the people, to feel the dynamic in the movement he’s unleashed and the sheer, disciplined strength that the German people possess.”80 The magical backdrop of Nuremberg had a particular effect on foreign journalists who would otherwise have been expected to maintain critical distance towards the spectacle. A New York Times report on the last day of the 1937 rally recorded foreign journalists from all over the world listening to Hitler’s concluding speech in their hotel and all spontaneously performing the raised-arm German greeting and enthusiastically singing
along with the German national anthem and the “Horst Wessel Song.”81 Both Germans and foreigners were taken in by the majestic surface of the Third Reich, so that they lost sight of the dark sides of the dictatorship.
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From the very beginning, the Nazi leadership had tried to reach out to the greatest number of people possible with the mass spectacle in Nuremberg. The main means of doing so was radio broadcasts. Yet they were largely restricted to recordings of speeches and were unable to communicate much of the atmosphere. By 1935, listeners had begun to get tired of them. “The comprehensive coverage on radio and in newspapers did not truly captivate the masses even during the rally week,” concluded a report from the Rhineland. “The people were indifferent.”82 It made sense to use the medium of film as a disseminator.
The NSDAP had the 1927 and 1929 Nuremberg rallies filmed, but the end results consisted of primitive, silent footage intended only for party initiates and never broadly distributed. Moreover, at that time Hitler was not yet the absolutely dominant figure of the event.83 That changed after the “seizure of power,” and for the “Party Rally of Victory.” In 1933, a work of vastly superior quality was commissioned to allow cinema audiences the chance to “experience” the event. Leni Riefenstahl’s hour had come.
The gifted young actress had established contact with Hitler in the spring of 1932 after attracting his attention in the lead role in her directorial debut, The Blue Light. By that autumn, she had become a regular guest at the Goebbelses’ house, where she occasionally encountered Hitler. She knew that her career would benefit if the National Socialists came to power,84 and in mid-May 1933 Goebbels proposed a collaboration. “In the afternoon Leni Riefenstahl,” he noted. “She told of her plans. I suggested a Hitler film. She was very enthusiastic.” In June, the two discussed the details, with the propaganda minister remarking, “She’s the only one of the stars who understands us.” By August the deal was done, and Riefenstahl was invited to lunch at the Chancellery—a sign of Hitler’s special favour. “She’s going to make our party rally film,” Goebbels enthused.85 The news was officially announced at the end of the month, only a few days before the Nuremberg rally. “At the express wish of the Führer,” it read, Fräulein Riefenstahl had been entrusted with the artistic direction of the party-rally film.86
The fact that an actress-turned-director and a non-party member was handed this project was a thorn in the side of the veteran Nazis at the film division of the Propaganda Ministry, in particular its director, Arnold Raether. Behind the scenes, there was intriguing and feuding aimed at calling Riefenstahl’s competence into question. But as long as she enjoyed Hitler’s favour, she had nothing to fear. And after her first Nuremberg rally film, which would bear the title The Victory of Faith, even the doubters in Hitler’s entourage were convinced of her skill as a director.87
On her own initiative, Riefenstahl hired three gifted cameramen: Sepp Allgeier, Franz Weihmayr and Walter Frentz, the last of whom would become Hitler’s preferred cameraman and play an important role during the Second World War.88 Understandably, the young female director, who led her team with great self-confidence during the four days of filming, caused quite a stir in Nuremberg. After the rally was over, she retreated to edit her footage. Goebbels, with whom she conferred, was certain: “She will produce something worthwhile.”89 Riefenstahl’s most original contribution was to break the static, somewhat monotonous sequence of speeches and marches by giving them a flowing rhythm, which made them more interesting. Disregarding the chronology of the rally, she recut the events into a suggestive series of visual images. She did without a voice-over, which was quite unusual for a documentary film, using only original statements by the speakers and the audience’s reaction. The entire film was accompanied by a soundtrack by Herbert Windt, a mixture of Wagneresque passages, folk melodies and crisp marches.90
Nonetheless, The Victory of Faith was anything but perfect, partly because the director was still a novice editor, partly because she was forced in part to use conventional weekly newsreel footage. Some scenes were unintentionally funny, such as when Göring paraded past Hitler’s limousine unaware that the Führer wanted to shake his hand, or when Baldur von Schirach accidentally brushed Hitler’s uniform cap from the rostrum with his behind.91 But the dictator had no objections when the film was shown to a select private audience in November 1933. “A fabulous SA symphony,” remarked Goebbels. “Riefenstahl did a good job. She is absolutely shattered by the work. Hitler moved. Should be a huge hit.”92 The film premiered on 1 December in the Ufa-Palast cinema in Berlin. The event was like a state occasion. Taking part along with Hitler, Goebbels, Röhm and Hess were other prominent government representatives including Papen, Neurath, Frick and Blomberg. “When the final note had faded, the visibly moved audience took to its feet and sang the ‘Horst Wessel Song’ to express its connection with the Führer and the movement,” reported Lichtspielbühne magazine. “But even then no one clapped. There was a moment of solemn silence, after which the enthusiasm was released in deafening ovations.”93 In the days that followed, Hitler’s entourage was subjected to repeated screenings of the film. Even Goebbels got sick and tired. “Evening at home,” he noted. “Führer…party rally film. Soon I’ll have had enough of it.”94
The press also greeted The Victory of Faith warmly as a “document of its time of incalculable value,” a “cinematic oratorio” and an “Eroica of the Nuremberg Rally.” One publicity campaign asserted: “The Führer has become Germany…[and] all of Germany shall now hear him thanks to the miracle of this film.”95 Local NSDAP chapters were instructed to cancel all other events on the day this “massively powerful cinematic work” was shown so that the greatest number of party members and people in general would be able to attend. With the help of mobile film trucks, the film was also shown in rural areas that did not have cinemas. As a result, as many as 20 million people were said to have seen Leni Riefenstahl’s directorial debut.96
But after six months the film was withdrawn from circulation. In a number of shots, Röhm could be seen next to Hitler, and after 30 June 1934, he was persona non grata on the silver screen. Almost all copies of the film were destroyed, most likely on Hitler’s orders. After 1945, the film was considered lost, until a copy was discovered in the East German state archives in the 1980s.97 The Nazis needed a replacement film, and Riefenstahl was once again hired to direct it. In late August 1934 as a “special representative of the NSDAP Reich Direction,” she signed a distribution agreement with Ufa.98 A week before the “Party Rally for Unity and Strength,” she travelled to Nuremberg to begin preparations for Triumph of the Will. The title had been Hitler’s idea.
Riefenstahl’s second film was on an entirely different level in terms of finances, personnel and technology. The director could draw on a budget of 300,000 reichsmarks and a staff of 170 employees, including 18 cameramen. “Film towers,” equipped with cameras, microphones and spotlights, were erected at high points on the Nuremberg party rally grounds. A lift was installed on a 28-metre-high mast in the Luitpoldarena so that an operator with a hand-held camera could get new perspectives on the gigantic marching grounds. Tracks were laid around the speakers’ stage so that Hitler could be filmed at unprecedented proximity and from various camera angles. Ultimately 130,000 metres of film were developed. Working at the Geyer Film Copying works in Berlin, Riefenstahl eventually trimmed that down to 3,000 metres, yielding a 114-minute film.99
As in The Victory of Faith, the director did not use a voice-over and ignored the chronology of the rally, instead boiling the seven days down to three and a half.100 In contrast to her first film, Hitler was the all-dominating main character this time. The entire narrative was focused on the expectations of spectators who cried out, “We want to see our Führer!” Even the opening credits were preparation for his appearance: “On 5 September 1934 / 20 years after the outbreak of the World War / 16 years after the beginning of Germany’s suffering / 19 months after the beginning of Ge
rmany’s rebirth / Adolf Hitler again flew to Nuremberg to inspect his true followers.” The opening scene shows the Führer in his aeroplane descending towards Nuremberg like a saviour sent from heaven. Riefenstahl then staged Hitler’s journey from the airport to his hotel as a secular version of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Standing in an open Mercedes, Hitler receives the adulation of the masses. A camera mounted in the car filmed him from behind, against the sunshine, so that his head seems to be ringed by a halo. A skilled use of cuts and counter-cuts shows Hitler mostly filmed from below and his jubilant admirers mostly from above. The Führer and his followers—the great, godlike charismatic leader and the faithful masses who looked up to him—are combined in a mystic unity.101
In November 1934, Goebbels viewed the first excerpts from the film. “Afternoon with Leni Riefenstahl, magnificent shots from the rally film,” he noted. “Leni has got talent. If she were a man!” Five months later, when the film was finally finished, Goebbels was no less enthusiastic: “A grandiose spectacle. In the final section perhaps a bit drawn-out, but otherwise a mind-shattering portrayal. Leni’s masterpiece.”102 Triumph of the Will premiered on 28 March 1935, two weeks after the reintroduction of compulsory military service. For the “film event of the year,” Albert Speer had dressed up the façade of the Ufa-Palast cinema and hung gigantic swastika flags all over it. An 8-metre-tall bronze Reich eagle was mounted above the entrance, which was illuminated by spotlights on the evening of the premiere. Once again party and government VIPs put in appearances, and after the frenetic applause had died down following the screening, Hitler presented the director with an enormous bouquet of lilacs.103 The reviews in the Nazi and Nazified press read like hymns. “The greatest cinematic work we have ever seen,” gushed the Völkischer Beobachter.104 Cinemas reported record numbers of ticket sales in the first few weeks of the film’s run, and Triumph of the Will became Germany’s most-watched film that year. On 25 June 1935, Goebbels presented Riefenstahl with the National Film Prize. In his citation, the propaganda minister praised her work as “the great cinematic vision of the Führer, who appears in it for the first time with a previously unknown, visual urgency.”105
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