For some reason I can’t now recall I recently took it into my head that I wanted to see Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary record of the Nazi party’s annual conference of 1934. This is a film that, like the Constitution, a lot of people talk about without having actually, you know, ingested it.
I’d heard about it for a number of years, but never had a chance to see it—it’s not the sort of thing that would appear on a double bill at the art houses with Double Indemnity, Sons of the Desert or Singing in the Rain. But having the inclination, I found a video of it through the King County Public Library and sat down to watch.
It’s a remarkable piece. And I’m talking mostly about the cinematography and filmic philosophy—the way it was conceived, shot, edited and presented—a far, far cry from what we see down at the multiplex. But also about what was deemed appealing to the public at the time. Here are some thoughts:
First, you have to actually watch it. The first 20-some minutes are nothing but images and music. There is a prologue—written, not spoken—to set the stage, and then the aerial approach of Hitler over the medieval city of Nürnberg and lengthy shots of party members preparing for the highly choreographed activities.
This is followed by excerpts from speeches by various alpha Nazis—Hess, Schirach, Goebbels, Goering, Hitler and others—interspersed with rallies of Hitlerjugend, military reviews, torchlight parades, and masses of uniformed laborers of various stripes.
But no voice-overs telling you what’s happening or how you should think about it. In fact, the only spoken words are the various speeches. So you have to concentrate. (If you understand German you could possibly go fix a salad or something, but if you did you’d miss the physical appearance of these guys as they spoke.)
Second, it’s black and white. Yes, most films were in the 30s, but Riefenstahl was commissioned specifically by Hitler and she had access to all the resources in the Reich. If she’d wanted color, she could have got it—and those red-black-and-white Nazi flags look stunning against seas of brown shirts.
But again, black and white means you have to pay attention.
Third—no smash cuts every 3.7 seconds. You’re actually able to follow an image and process it. The camera stays on speakers without “commenting” by moving around.
Fourth, there’s the music—what a blessed respite from the docus you see produced today that not only add sound effects (marching feet, airplane motors, crowds murmuring), which actually detract from the authenticity of what you’re seeing (kind of like the mirror image of “reality TV”) but also splice in completely extraneous canned music loops to “fill” the space not taken by the fake sounds. Riefenstahl chooses this as carefully as she does her camera angles: opening segment is Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which segues into the Horst Wessel Lied. The film closes out with Götterdämerung fading into Horst Wessel.
One Nazi standard into another. Worth more than all the irrelevant incidental music in all the stock houses in the world.
Then there’s how the main characters are presented. No attempt whatsoever to make them look prettier than they are. Frankly, Hitler’s inner circle was remarkably ugly—Goebbels, Himmler, Hess, Bormann, Streicher, Goering… There’s not a one of them you’d want to take to a Manhattan after-party. The only looker in the bunch was Reinhard Heydrich. But there’s clearly no makeup on them. Plus they’re obviously and unashamedly sweating.
Now, this is fascinating given the recent trend in US politics: from the Nixon-Kennedy debates we’ve been on a downward trend where how you look counts more than what you stand for. Try to imagine anyone without even features, good hair, a svelte figure and designer clothes getting elected to national office. Not going to happen.
Can you say Ralph Nader?
(I imagine that was a good deal of Sarah Palin’s appeal to the RNC handlers who picked her as John McCain’s running mate. If she’d held the same views and looked like a youthful Bella Abzug, she’d never have made the short list.)
BTW—you don’t see this crowd together again on film until they’re in the dock at the Nuremburg war crimes trials in 1946. Minus, of course, those who’d committed suicide.
There are reviews and demonstrations and mass protestations of hope, belief and loyalty. When I say “mass” I mean an entire stadium of serried ranks of organizations swearing undying fealty to the party. Of particular interest were the labor brigades—uniformed and wielding their shovels like rifles.
(Really—it’s clear that you weren’t much of a Nazi unless you had a uniform.)
I also was fascinated by the cavalry demonstration: soldiers in the feldgrau uniforms and that distinctive helmet wheeling and cantering—with modern rifles with fixed bayonets. There was also horse artillery. Remember—this was only 16 months after the Nazis took over; they hadn’t started mass producing their Panzers yet.
Although you’d see a lot of these horses in service in the retreat from the Soviet Union and the defense of Western Europe, 1943-45.
The closing images are of the “blood flag” ritual—Hitler consecrating new party banners by touching them with the flag allegedly splattered with the blood of the fallen from the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch attempt. There’s also an interesting reconciliation with the SA—referring to the Night of the Long Knives that took place less than three months before, when Hitler had his old street fighting buddies eradicated.
Finally, there’s an endless parade of troops through the old heart of the city, and Hitler proclaims “All loyal Germans will become National Socialists. Only the best National Socialists are party comrades!”
Presumably all the cheering masses considered themselves as part of that elite.
Now, Triumph is a highly controversial film precisely because of its subject matter—and because it’s so good at presenting it. I’m not going to comment on that except to say that anyone outside of Germany who saw this film should not have been surprised in the least at the train of events that led to September 1939. Starting with the prologue, it was patently clear that the Nazi regime was all about doing a better job of putting Germany on top of the world than the Kaiser had. Viz.:
“On September 5, 1934, ... 20 years after the outbreak of the World War ... 16 years after the beginning of our suffering ... 19 months after the beginning of the German renaissance ... Adolf Hitler flew again to Nuremberg to review the columns of his faithful followers…”
The “beginning of our suffering” refers to the Versailles Treaty, and the “renaissance” is Hitler’s accession to power.
There’s also a clear indication of Goebbels’s philosophy of propaganda: in order to make it work, you have to tell a big lie, and you have to keep on repeating it, in the face of any questions you’re asked. If you try little lies, you're sunk; and if you waver at all, you’re gone. Him talking about the free and open press in Nazi Germany alone is worth the price of admission.
There’s a historic touch to the finale that I find telling: that parade passes the Frauenkirche square, which is beautiful and quaint in a Grimm Brothers kind of way. Every year the great Christkindlmarkt is held right there—stalls of traditional (and, these days, Chinese) Christmas decorations, goodies and gifts, bratwurst and glüwein to keep the damp cold outside of you. These markets have been there for hundreds of years.
That area used to be the Jewish ghetto of Nuremberg. Until the good citizens petitioned the Holy Roman Emperor (don’t get me started on that one) Karl IV to cleanse their fair city of the aliens—who were also business competitors. The emperor graciously granted the town a pogrom; the Jews were gathered into the synagogue, which was set afire.
The beautiful Frauenkirche was built on that spot and has anchored city rites from holiday fairs to Nazi rallies ever since.
And you should definitely watch Triumph of the Will.
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