Day of freedom! - Our armed forces

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Movie
Original title Day of freedom! - Our armed forces
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1935
length 28 minutes
Rod
Director Leni Riefenstahl
script Leni Riefenstahl
production Leni Riefenstahl
music Peter Kreuder
camera Hans Ertl ,
Guzzi Lantschner ,
Kurt Neubert ,
Walter Frentz ,
Willy Zielke
cut Leni Riefenstahl

Day of freedom! - Our Wehrmacht is a Nazi propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl about the seventh Reich Party Congress of the NSDAP (“Party Conference of Freedom”), which took place from September 10 to 16, 1935 on the Zeppelin meadow in Nuremberg . It is the last part of Riefenstahl's party congress trilogy and follows on from its predecessors The Victory of Faith and Triumph of Will .

General

In the center of propaganda -scale documentary demonstration of the recovered military strength is the German Reich since the " seizure " of the Nazis in 1933. The film is mainly limited to the presentation of the maneuvers of the armed forces .

The first private screening took place at the end of December 1935 in the Berlin Reich Chancellery , the official premiere is dated December 30, 1935 in the Ufa-Palast am Zoo in Berlin . From a total of 17,000 meters of film, the director used 760 meters for the shortest work of the party congress trilogy at 28 minutes. “Freedom Day!” Was thought to be lost for a long time before the film appeared in US and Soviet archives in the early 1970s .

One reason for Freedom Day to appear! was the fact that the military exercises of the 1934 congress were not adequately contained in the film Triumph of the Will . After a dispute with General Walter von Reichenau , Riefenstahl suggested making a short film about the Wehrmacht.

content of the film

The film illustrates the Wehrmacht's demonstration maneuvers on the Nuremberg zeppelin field and shows tanks , airplanes in the sky and more than 14,000 soldiers of all branches of service .

The 28-minute short film can be divided into five storylines:

  1. Atmospheric images from the soldiers' tent camp
  2. Cavalry on the way to the Zeppelin meadow
  3. Adolf Hitler's speech
  4. Military parade
  5. Exhibition fights on the Zeppelin meadow

As a symbolic finale, Leni Riefenstahl chose the image of a flight squadron that formed a swastika in the sky . Despite the short duration, Riefenstahl shows in Freedom Day! the longest speech by Adolf Hitler in the party congress trilogy. Hitler pretended that the Wehrmacht only served to keep the peace. He used this tactical hypocrisy to reassure the public. Riefenstahl made Adolf Hitler visually rise to a kind of demigod due to the view from below , often used in her films . The party congress was intended to express the regained military strength of the German Reich.

Intention and Effect

The intention of Freedom Day! is the representation of a romantic soldier idyll. The film illustrates a triumphant militarism with the aim of consolidating the self-confidence of the Germans through new military strength and of getting the population used to the idea of war . In addition, readiness for military service and militarization should be popularized. The parades, roll calls and the spectacular exhibition fights were intended to give the public a sense of national power. Furthermore, the regained “honor of the weapon” contributed to a reduction in the humiliation that some believed to have suffered from the Treaty of Versailles as a result of the First World War .

Day of freedom! was versatile for propaganda purposes. The film was able to show both the new strength of the German armed forces, but at the same time the remaining weakness in comparison with other nations, depending on which context appeared to be useful.

Typical of Riefenstahl's perception of the world is not addressing the political decisions of the party congress. For example, the Reichstag President Hermann Göring promulgated the Nuremberg Race Laws ("Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor") at the "Freedom Party Congress", through which the Jews lost all their civil rights and were excluded from the state, economic, and cultural life were excluded. Leni Riefenstahl did not mention this racist element in her film.

See also

literature

Web links