We want our people to love peace, but also to be brave……..

And so you must be

peace-loving and courageous at the same time.

Admirable words, with the minor drawback of having been uttered by Adolf Hitler. This
statement was made by the then Führer of Germany in a speech directed at the Hitler Youth as
part of the Nuremberg rally (the Nazis’ annual large-scale propaganda event) in 1934. It is this
rally that lies at the heart of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935). The 114-minute long
film is an unabashed advertisement of Hitler and the Nazi party, commissioned by the man
himself, who also served as an executive producer (albeit unofficial) for the film.
The movie differs from your average documentary in that it almost aggressively pushes forward
a certain narrative, rather than just blandly portraying facts. This is, of course, by no means
surprising, given the clear intentions behind the production of the film. The narrative in question
was greatly interesting to me, having never watched any piece of Nazi propaganda before; seeing
Hitler, of all people, presented in a positive light, with civilians and military personnel alike
fawning over him, was in equal measure disorienting and fascinating, albeit in a morbid sort of
way.
As earlier mentioned, the film’s central point is the 1934 Nazi Party Congress/ Nuremberg rally,
which notably occurred after the Night of the Long Knives, during which many extrajudicial
executions were carried out under Hitler’s orders as a means to pre-empt a suspected coup. The
targets were not political opponents, but in fact prominent members of the Nazis’ own
paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA) . This purge had the effect of suppressing the
SA, who seem to have represented the left wing within the party. It also served to cement
Hitler’s position at the head of Germany in nearly every way possible - his strength, as displayed
in his extrajudicial, arbitrary move to execute several prominent military figures among others,
earned him a great deal of reverence among the military and elevated his status to one who was
above the law. A consequence of this incident that can be seen in the movie is the greatly
subdued presence of the SA forces at the 1934 rally; this is a far cry from Riefenstahl’s The
Victory of Faith (1933), which chronicled the party congress of a year earlier and in which the
Sturmabteilung plays a much more prominent part (especially a certain Ernst Röhm; see here).
For the most part, the film alternates between parades or crowd shots and excerpts from speeches
by prominent Nazi leaders including Joseph Goebbels, Hans Frank, Julius Streicher and, of
course, Hitler himself. What I found interesting about Hitler’s speeches is that for a majority of
the film, his words generally have a tinge of inclusivity and benevolence; even when speaking to
the military, few of his words seem particularly incendiary or violent. It is only in his closing
speech that he lets his mask slip; he appears agitated, enunciating with great intensity, his face
glowing with sweat and his eyes gleaming with a certain insane charisma. He brings up the
concept of racial superiority (‘We carry the best blood and we know this’) and reaffirms the
permanent right and duty of the Nazi party to be the political leadership of Germany. At one
point in the speech, he says,

The Party will always be the political leadership of the German people. It will
remain unchangeable in its doctrine, hard as steel in its organisation, supple and
adaptable in its tactics. In its entity, however, it will be like a religious order.

The film’s merits lie not just in how well Riefenstahl is able to capture Hitler and his associates
(made possible, of course, only by their close association), but also in how she shows the
adulation of the public and the military. Early on in the film, the populace of Nuremberg is
shown to be thronging the streets, eagerly awaiting Hitler’s arrival. Rather than let him take up
all the space on screen and attempt to awe the audience by the force of his presence alone,
Riefenstahl’s decision to enhance Hitler’s image through what others see of him is testament to
her vision as a director. Technically, too, the film is highly advanced; the long aerial opening
sequence, the occasional transitions and the well-timed cuts are of a level rarely seen in those
times. Triumph of the Will is considered exemplary as far as propaganda films are concerned,
and for good reason.
On the flip side, the film is not one I can appreciate wholeheartedly, purely on account of the
ideology it seeks to promote. Riefenstahl may have maintained to the bitter end that she had been
unaware of the Holocaust at the time she directed the film (and other similar ones), but that, in a
way, only makes it more painful to watch. The bright, adoring faces of the Germans as they look
up to their beloved leader constitute a horrible sight for any watcher with a conscience. For one
who knows the rotten truth hidden beneath the glimmering veneer of this film, no amount of
technical excellence could make this film likeable. Even so, it is a film that compels you to
continue watching, if only to satisfy your morbid curiosity and to answer for yourself the
question, “How far were they willing to go to shape their image to their convenience?” I found
myself rewatching the parts of Hitler’s speech that drew the most cheers, just to process how
utterly bizarre the whole situation was - people roaring their support for him as though he had
promised free education and healthcare for all. A grotesque wonder, if nothing else.
Triumph of the Will can be watched either with utter seriousness or just for the sheer irony; either
way, it is, to put it informally, a weird experience. Its technical aspects are undoubtedly worth
appreciating on their own, but for the fact that its message is so overwhelmingly irredeemable.
Riefenstahl’s masterpiece is a good piece of skill, but a terrible application of it. And that makes
it an overall strange entity.