Triumph des Willens

Leni Riefenstahl's film about the party congress of the National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiters Partei (NSDAP) in 1934 is one of the most controversial contributions to film history. With a style and montage which are aesthetic highlights, TRIUMPH DES WILLENS has all characteristics of a master piece. The fact that the master piece was serving the propagation of a perverse ideology does not annul that qualification. Propaganda and master piece apparently do not exclude each other. Riefenstahl herself still contests that she made a propaganda film, but the film puts her in the wrong. TRIUMPH DES WILLENS presents the NSDAP as a profane religious order with Hitler as its divine leader. Due to its content the film was largely neglected by film historians and critics in the post-war period. Nowadays triumph des willens regularly emerges in discussions about the relationship between art and propaganda.