TheNuremberg rallies (German:Reichsparteitag(German pronunciationⓘ), meaning'Reich Party Congress') were a series of celebratory events coordinated by theNazi Party and held in theGerman city ofNuremberg from 1923 to 1938. The first nationwide party convention took place inMunich in January 1923, but the location was shifted to Nuremberg that September.[1] The rallies usually occurred in late August or September, lasting several days to a week.[1] They played a central role inNazi propaganda, using mass parades, "military rituals", speeches, concerts, and variedstagecraft methods to project the image of a strong and united Germanyunder Nazi leadership.[2]
The rallies became a national event followingAdolf Hitler's rise to power in 1933, and were thereafter held annually. Once the Nazi dictatorship wasfirmly established, party propagandists began filming the rallies for a national, and international, audience. Nazi filmmakerLeni Riefenstahl produced several films, includingTriumph of the Will (1934) andThe Victory of Faith (1933), at therally grounds in Nuremberg.[3] The 1938 rally celebrated theAnschluss—Germany's annexation of Austria—which occurred earlier that year.[3]
The planned 1939 rally was cancelled due to Germany'sinvasion of Poland. Scheduled to begin on 2 September, this rally was ironically called theReichsparteitag des Friedens, or "Rally of Peace".[4][5] The regime never held another rally, as Germany prioritized its efforts in theSecond World War.[5] By March 1940, construction at the rally grounds had "almost halted", althoughprisoners of war continued work as late as 1943, being housed in barracks originally "erected for rally participants".[5]
The first Nazi "Party Day" was held in 1920 by the "National Socialist German Workers' Association", the precursor of theBrownshirts.[6] Early party rallies occurred in 1923 atMunich, and in 1926 atWeimar.[6] At the 1926 rally, Hitler was able to hold "both the general parade as well as the consecration of the flags" at Weimar, where he spoke about the meaning of theNazi flag as "some three hundred" of the banners were displayed on stage behind him.[6]
The rallies were not a "decision-making body", and Hitler did not allow their "parliamentarization".[6] Rather, their purpose was to "instill theHitler myth deeply into the hearts of the faithful", with "rituals", "fireworks", and "invocations surrounding the flag" all playing a part.[6] Nuremberg was "designed from the start as a place for show and spectacle", and not for "debates" over the party's policy.[7] Hitler himself declared that the rallies should be a "clear and understandable demonstration of the will and theyouthful strength" of the party, while Propaganda MinisterJoseph Goebbels said that the rallies changed a participant "from a little worm into part of a large dragon".[7]
From 1927 onward, party rallies took place exclusively in Nuremberg.[8] The party chose Nuremberg because of its "rich history", as the "city had been thediet of theHoly Roman Empire" in the medieval era.[7] The Nazis also began calling it "the most German of German cities".[7] Diehard anti-SemiteJulius Streicher, who published the militantDer Stürmer newspaper, also led theNuremberg regional party, and the city had been a "hotbed of Nazi support" during the movement's rise to power.[9] Lastly, the Luitpoldhain park gave Nuremberg the "advantage of a large open space for mass gatherings".[7]
Hitler chose architectAlbert Speer to improve the rally complex and, in the summer of 1933, Speer "reshaped Nuremberg" to make it "suitable for hosting what was now the party in power".[7] In 1934, he enlarged the Zeppelin Field structures and built them in stone, specifically pink and whitegranite.[7] In Speer's own words, he designed a "mighty flight of stairs topped and enclosed by a longcolonnade, flanked on both ends by stone abutments. Undoubtedly it was influenced by thePergamum altar".[7] Hitler agreed with Speer's plan, and the finished stadium had a capacity of hundreds of thousands of people.[7] Speer also used lighting to highlight the architecture—and present Hitler in an impressive way—with "130 aircraft searchlights" arranged around and above the stadium.[7] Speer's so-called "Cathedral of Light", orLichtdom, was a key feature of the event, and has been described as the "single most dramatic moment of the Nazi Party rallies".[10] TheFlak Searchlight-34 and -37 models used for the effect were developed in the 1930s, and had "an output of 990 millioncandelas".[11]
Rallies opened withRichard Wagner's 1868 opera,Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, performed by theBerlin State Opera, and ceremonies included a parade where district party flags were touched to theBlutfahne, the flag used during the failedBeer Hall Putsch coup attempt of 1923.[7] The rally ended with a speech from Hitler. Spotlights focused on the "place where Hitler entered the arena", and music played from "multiple bands, orchestras, and loudspeakers" as he approached the podium.[7] Hitler's speeches at Nuremberg have been described, like hisother speeches, as "less about meaningful content and more about creating a dramatic impact using a mishmash of stereotypes, rhetorical devices, and emotionally-charged language".[7]
During a specialReichstag meeting at the 1935 Nuremberg rally, the German government enacted theNuremberg Laws, strippingGerman Jews of their citizenship,[12] making the swastika banner the official national flag,[13] and banning "marriage and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews".[12] The Nuremberg Laws have been described as the "most notorious" piece ofanti-Semitic legislation enacted by Hitler's regime.[14]
The Nuremberg Laws were based not on religion, but on race, being grounded on the idea that "racial identity" was "transmitted irrevocably through the blood" of Jewish ancestors.[15] Personally designed by Hitler and proclaimed on 15 September 1935, the laws were "among the first of the racist Nazi laws that culminated inthe Holocaust".[15]
Each rally was given a programmatic title, which related to recent national events:
The first film to document a Nuremberg rally wasA Symphony of the Will to Fight, released in 1927.[22] The most famous films, however, were made by directorLeni Riefenstahl for the rallies between 1933 and 1935. Her first movie,Victory of Faith (Der Sieg des Glaubens), was released in 1933.[23][24] Because the film featuredSA chiefErnst Röhm, who was later killed on Hitler's orders in the 1934Night of the Long Knives, almost all copies ofDer Sieg des Glaubens were destroyed.[25] It was considered alost film until a copy was found inEast Germany's film archives in the 1980s.[25]
The rally of 1934 became the setting for Riefenstahl's award-winningTriumph of the Will (Triumph des Willens).[26][27] In 1935 she madeDay of Freedom: Our Armed Forces (Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht) about theGerman Army,[27] filmed because the army felt it was not represented well enough inTriumph of the Will.[28] Riefenstahl, who lived until 2003, would face lifelong controversy because of her films and closeness to the regime.[29]
The 1936 and 1937 rallies were covered in the short filmFestliches Nürnberg, directed byHans Weidemann.[30]
There were two sets of official, or semi-official, books covering the rallies. The so-called "Red books" were officially published by the Nazi Party and contained the proceedings of each rally, along with the full text of speeches.[31]
The "Blue books" were published initially byJulius Streicher, theGauleiter ofNuremberg, and later byHanns Kerrl, not by the party press.[31] These were larger scale books that included excerpts of speeches in addition to photographs.[31]
Alongside these books, collections of photos by Hitler's official photographer,Heinrich Hoffman, were published to commemorate each Party congress, as well as pamphlets of Hitler's speeches.[31] Hoffman created 100-image series on the 1936, 1937, and 1938 rallies.[31]
Jürgen Trimborn, author of a highly critical biography published in 2002, declared that there was "no evidence that, due to her proximity to the regime, Riefenstahl knew more than others did about the mass annihilation of the Jews. But it is obvious that, like most Germans, she knew enough to be sure that it was better not to know even more." (Gladitz would later judge this analysis as far too generous.)
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