Festive Nuremberg DVD Review by Blaine Taylor

Anyone who has seen German film actress-director Leni Riefenstahl's magnificent political documentary Triumph of the Will can now also see this sequel of the highlights of the annual Nazi Party Congress rallies of 1936 and 1937. They helped to delude the Western Allies as to Hitler's actual military strength due to their massive scale demonstrations of uniforms, flags, pageantry, and overall staged extravaganzas. These include the Fuhrer's aerial arrival by plane that reveals the Gothic city below in all its medieval splendor. This is followed by his massed motorcades of Mercedes-Benz 770K cars that are still automotive legends. The viewer sees military reviews and cultural folk dances by peasants in their native farmers' garb, parachute drops, artillery fire, and the infantry, cavalry, and armored formations that within a few years would be the terror of Continental Europe. Aside from actual explosions, there are also night rallies, torch lit marches, fireworks, and massed throngs chanting for Hitler to appear at his hotel window once more. As a political propaganda piece, the film demonstrates both how and why Hitler was able to unite Germany behind him until it took foreign armies to both invade and occupy the Third Reich in order to end the Nazi regime. That he had popular, massed support cannot be doubted, and is proven here once more in some of the greatest pageantry footage ever shot and screened. This is political showmanship at its zenith.