The Nazi propaganda film Hitler tried to erase from history
In short: Leni Riefenstahl’s first Nazi propaganda film, The Victory of Faith, was a massive success in 1933. Yet, within a year, Hitler ordered every copy destroyed. The reason? The film captured him in intimate, friendly moments with Ernst Röhm, a man he would soon order executed during the Night of the Long Knives.
Released in December 1933, The Victory of Faith documents the Fifth Nazi Party Rally in Nuremberg. It serves as a raw, chronological record of the party’s early power, featuring figures like Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, and the SA leader Ernst Röhm. Unlike Riefenstahl’s later, more polished work, this film shows the party hierarchy in a candid light, with Röhm appearing as the second most powerful man in the movement. The film’s visual language—including the hypnotic shots of marching feet and the use of aerial perspectives—laid the technical foundation for Riefenstahl’s more famous 1935 feature, Triumph of the Will.
The film’s downfall was its depiction of the relationship between Hitler and Röhm. By July 1934, Hitler had turned on the SA leadership, orchestrating the Night of the Long Knives to eliminate perceived rivals. To maintain the narrative of his absolute authority, Hitler sought to scrub Röhm from history, ordering the destruction of all known copies of the film. For decades, it was believed that the film had been successfully erased, with historians assuming even Riefenstahl’s personal copy was gone.
The film’s survival is a historical accident. In 1986, a copy was discovered in the archives of the German Democratic Republic. Additionally, Riefenstahl’s own copy, which she had left in the UK in 1934, was eventually located. These surviving reels provide a rare, unvarnished look at the internal dynamics of the Nazi Party before the regime’s later efforts to sanitize its image. By comparing the two films, historians can see how Riefenstahl reused specific shots, musical scores by Herbert Windt, and even incidental footage—like a cat in a car-driving sequence—to craft the more controlled propaganda that followed.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The Victory of Faith
- Also: Wikidata — The victory of faith · CC0
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