Tag der Freiheit! – Unsere Wehrmacht
Day of Freedom! - Our Wehrmacht is a Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl via the seventh Reich Party Rally ( " Party of Freedom" ), which took place at the Nuremberg Zeppelin Field from 10 to 16 September 1935. He is the last part of Riefenstahl's Congress trilogy and follows upon the previous Victory of Faith and Triumph of the Will.
General
In the center of the scale propaganda documentary film demonstrating the recovered military strength of the German Empire has stood the "seizure of power " by the Nazis in 1933. The film is mainly limited to the presentation of the maneuvers of the Wehrmacht.
The first demonstration took place in private end of December 1935 held in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, the official premiere is dated December 30, 1935 at the Ufa - Palast am Zoo in Berlin. From a total of 17,000 meters of film, the director used 760 meters for the shortest with 28 minutes work of Congress trilogy. " Day of Freedom " was long thought to be lost before the film appeared in U.S. and Soviet archives in the early 1970s.
One reason for the emergence of day of freedom! was the fact that the military exercises were not included by the Congress in 1934 in an appropriate setting in the film Triumph of the Will. After a confrontation with General Walter von Reichenau Riefenstahl made the suggestion to make a short film about the Wehrmacht.
Content of the film
The film illustrates the scene maneuvers of the Wehrmacht at the Nuremberg Zeppelin Field, showing tanks, planes in the sky and more than 14,000 soldiers of all arms.
The 28 -minute short film can be divided into five storylines:
A symbolic finale of Leni Riefenstahl chose the image of a flying squadron, which had formed in the sky to a swastika. Despite the short duration Riefenstahl shows in the day of freedom! the longest speech by Adolf Hitler in Party trilogy. Hitler pretended that the Wehrmacht serves only to keep the peace. He used this tactical hypocrisy in order to reassure the public. By the soffit frequently used in their films Riefenstahl Adolf Hitler was visually rise to a kind of demigod. The Congress should bring the recovered military strength of the German Reich expressed.
Intention and effect
The intention of the day of freedom! is the representation of a romantic idyll soldiers. The film illustrates a triumphant militarism with the aim to strengthen the self-confidence of the Germans by new military strength and to accustom the population to the idea of war. In addition, the military preparedness and the militarization thus should be popularized. The parades, appeals and the spectacular exhibition matches their intention was to give the public a sense of national power. Furthermore wore regained " military honor " to a reduction of humiliation in which to have some suffered by the Treaty of Versailles following the First World War meant.
Day of Freedom! was versatile for propaganda purposes. The film was both the new strength of the German Wehrmacht, but also simultaneously represent the remaining weakness in comparison with other nations, whichever context appeared to be useful.
Typical of the Riefenstahlsche perception of the world is the non- thematization of the political decisions of the Congress. Thus, the Nuremberg racial laws were (the "Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor ") on the " Party of Freedom" announced by the Reichstag president Hermann Goering, by which the Jews lost all their civic rights and from the political, economic, and cultural life were excluded. Leni Riefenstahl conceal this racist element in their " documentary".