Nuremberg Rally
The Nuremberg Rally, or the Reich Party Congress, was an annual event held from 1927 to 1938 in Nürnberg, Germany. Organised on a massive scale by the National Socialist Party (Nazi), these operations in pomp, ceremony, and propaganda were attended by hundreds of thousands of party members. The climax was always a speech by the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).
The Power of Propaganda
The National Socialist Party rallies were first held in Nuremberg in Bavaria in 1927 and continued until the outbreak of the Second World War (1939-45). Previously, Nazi rallies had been held in Munich and Weimar, but Nuremberg allowed the Nazis to play on its rich history, since in medieval times, the city had been the diet of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The Nazis even began to call Nuremberg "the most German of German cities" (Range, 115). The city also had the advantage of a large open space for mass gatherings, the Luitpoldhain park.
These annual events, held each September and attended by Nazi party members, spanned several days. Unlike other gatherings of other political parties, Nuremberg was designed from the start as a place for show and spectacle, not the usual motions and debates on the intricacies of party policy. Hitler wanted unity and decreed that the rallies were to be a "clear and understandable demonstration of the will and the youthful strength" of the National Socialist Party (Range, 149). This was, however, still a period when the Nazi party was battling for electoral recognition, and it was not until 1933, when the Nazis took power, that the Nuremberg rallies became truly grandiose affairs.
The Nazis understood the power of presentation and the positive effects of well-orchestrated pomp and ceremony on a populace that perhaps had yet to be fully convinced of Nazi policies and their wild ambitions for Germany. Hitler had devoted two chapters of his book Mein Kampf (published in 1925) to the subject of propaganda, in particular, the power of imagery and slogans on the masses. Hitler and his master of propaganda Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945), who took on this role in 1928, were constantly on the lookout for opportunities where the people could be impressed by sights, sounds, and words. As Hugh Greene, a British journalist based in Berlin in the late 1930s noted:
Showmanship was very important to the Nazis. I think that Hitler quite consciously wanted to keep the German people, or the mass of them, in a state of constant intoxication. The annual event at Nuremberg was of particular importance. (Holmes, 38)
Hitler, Nuremberg Rally of 1935
H.Hoffmann - Imperial War Museums (CC BY-NC-SA)
People came to Nuremberg on special trains and stayed in military barracks, empty warehouses, tents, and railway carriages. Special guests were invited for their prestige, such as Prince August Wilhelm (1887-1949), the son of Kaiser Wilhelm II (r. 1888-1918), and Winifred Wagner (1897-1990), daughter-in-law of the composer Richard Wagner (1813-1883) and organiser of the important Bayreuth music festival. Sympathetic foreigners, particularly diplomats and journalists, were also invited to the rallies so that they could report back home favourably on Hitler and Nazi Germany.
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