Independent Films, Film Profiles

Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht
by Leni Riefenstahl

Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (English: Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces) is the third documentary directed by Leni Riefenstahl. Her film recounts the Seventh Party Rally of the Nazi Party, which occurred in Nuremberg and focuses on the German army.Tag der Freiheit was considered lost at the end of World War II, but an incomplete print of the film was discovered in the 1970s—the extant footage reveals Riefenstahl mainly reprising the approach she used in Triumph of the Will, though certain more expressionistic sequences clearly presage the more audacious style she would adopt for Olympia.A warning of things to come is given in this featurette depicting a mock battle staged by German troops during the colorful ceremonies at Nuremberg on German Armed Forces Day 1935. The camera follows the soldiers from their early-morning preparations in their tent city as they march singing to the vast parade grounds where a miniature war involving infantry, cavalry, aircraft, flak guns and the first public appearance of Germany's new forbidden tank is presented before Hitler and thousands of spectators.The film ends with a montage of Nazi flags to the tune of Das Deutschlandlied and a shot of German planes flying overhead in a swastika formation.