If any teacher is starting, or is in the middle of, a unit about the Holocaust, you MUST include this film in your lessons.
Triumph of the Will (1935), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, is widely considered among the greatest propaganda films of all time. Riefenstahi documents the 1934 Party Congress of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), or Nazi Party. In her camera work, editing, and use of moving and close-up shots, Riefenstahi succeeds in creating a dazzling, upward movement of a people on the rise–and a leader at the forefront of that movement.
In many classrooms, students have at least a cursory understanding of the horrors of the Holocaust. However, many teachers, due to either ignorance, lack of content knowledge, etc., paint the tragedy as a simplistic moral tale: innocents slaughtered by heartless, unfeeling monsters. Here’s an experiment I do that proves this otherwise.
Play the film for the students–and make sure you don’t tell the children any more than its a movie from the 1930s. Watch and note how many times the children tap or play along to the marching music, cheer, give a Nazi salute, etc.
I then ask, “Class, you know about Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, right?” Most of my kids will probably respond about the Holocaust, about starting wars, hating Jews, or at the very least “he’s a bad guy.”
Then comes my response: “…then why did you enjoy the film so much?”
Most of the class would sit, stunned. One year, a girl started to cry. For the students, the realization that they became immersed in Nazi propaganda is a frightening experience. Its an experience that’s absolutely necessary in order to understand the Holocaust.
The slaughter of millions of people was not done by mere monsters. As shown in Triumph of the Will, an entire nation of regular people–people just like you and me–was seduced by the call of a return to glory and happiness.
Little did they realize then the horrible cost of that seduction.
Principals are not necessarily the lynchpin of a school–just ask 
This Day in History 5/2: Nazis fall in Berlin and Italy
Red Army soldiers at a hotel near the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Thus stars must have aligned perfectly, as the day in which Osama bin Laden was announced dead marks the anniversary of another milestone in the fight against oppression and terror.
On May 2, 1945, the Red Army finally announces the capture of the German capital of Berlin. With the Soviet flag flying over the Reichstag, the German parliament building, the European theater of World War II was effectively over.
At the same time, in the Italian front, German general Heinrich von Vietinghoff signs the documents of surrender, as German forces give up all of Italy to the Allies. Benito Mussolini, Hitler‘s busom buddy, was shot and strung up a few days previously on April 28, and Hitler would meet his own inglorious end on the 30th.
Like Osama bin Laden, their deaths were long overdue. Furthermore, the world is a better place without them. Their deaths were met with little saddness: just as today, crowds gathered in London, Times Square, Moscow and other cities to celebrate the end of lives that did far more harm than any good.
My grandmother had a soft spot for Mussolini. Good thing she’s not around to hear this: Il Duce was as big a piece of crap as Der Fuhrer, Comrade Stalin, and the turbaned maniac we just double-tapped. We’re a better country–nee, a better planet–without these people.
Good riddance.
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