Victory of Faith ( Der Sieg des Glaubens )

Buy This Item Victory of Faith ( Der Sieg des Glaubens )  Available from Amazon  $34.95  on 12-5-2008     Features Actors: Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Ernst Roehm Directors: Leni Riefenstahl Format: Black & White, Subtitled, NTSC Language: German, Italian Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Number of discs: 1 Studio: A & M productions DVD Release Date: November 9, 2003 Run Time: 70 minutes Average Customer Review:   9 Reviews 5 star:  (4) 4 star:  (2) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:  (2) 1 star:    (0) See all 9 customer reviews...   (9 customer reviews) Reader Reviews In 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote: "From this a general rule is drawn which never or rarely fails; that he who is the cause of another becoming powerful is ruined; because that predominancy has been brought about either by astuteness or else by force, and both are distrusted by him who has been raised to power." Leni Riefenstahl's "Der Sieg des Glaubens" is an excellent, if unwitting, testament to this brutal truth of politics. Commissioned by Adolf Hitler in 1933, just after he assumed the chancellorship of Germany, "Victory of Faith" was meant to commemorate the Nazi "seizure of power." Aside from Hitler, it prominently features many of the men who were instrumental its victory: but none more so than SA Chief of Staff Ernst Rohm. Rohm, standing side-by-side with Hitler in many of the scenes, clearly enjoys a special status even among the Nazi elite. And this is as it should be, for without Rohm and his SA, Hitler would not have been standing on the podium at all. Rohm, a pudgy, scar-faced ex-army captain and political intriguer, had been instrumental in supply arms for the Nazi's failed 1923 Putsch attempt: he also served as an early commander of the SA, the Nazi Party's famed storm troopers. For a time he fell out with Hitler and worked as a mercenary in South America; but Hitler, who had difficulty keeping the SA under control, eventually realized that Rohm alone could keep the brownshirts on their leashes. He recalled Rohm, designated him the "Stabschef der SA" or chief of staff, and granted him plenary powers to reorganize the storm troops and bring them into line with the Party's (meaning Hitler's) ultimate aims. Rohm was brilliantly successful and vastly expanded the SA into a force of some two million men. He conquered the streets and beer halls of Germany for Hitler, and was literally the bludgeon by which Hitler thrashed his way into power. For his pains, Rohm expected both he and his SA to be well compensated. And therein lay the problem. Rohm was blunt-talking, crude, and revolutionary in his aims. He wanted to absorb the German army into the SA and create a "National Socialist Army" under his own command -- after, of course, he had purged its officer corps of its aristocrats. He longed for the "second revolution" which would see the end of the Junkers and bring radical socialist reforms in German industry and agriculture. Finally, he was openly homosexual. For all of these reasons, Rohm made both the Nazis and the German army very nervous. Hitler too eventually came to see his friend and comrade as a threat. The very guile and ruthlessness Rohm had shown during the Party's "time of struggle" now made him a danger to Hitler's person. And so, less than a year after Riefenstahl shot "Victory of Faith" Hitler shot Ernst Rohm. By that time he had worked himself up into believing the SA had actually been planning a putsch against him, and in a fit of rage he ordered all references to Rohm obliterated. Thus, "Victory of Faith" went on the bonfire, ultimately replaced by "Triumph of the Will" (which was filmed a year later). Only a single copy of "Victory" left "accidentally on purpose" in Britain before the war, survived. Lucky for us, because the film is a gold mine of never-before-seen visuals of many top Nazis, and a good snapshot of the pecking order of the Nazi Party prior to the Night of the Long Knives. The black-uniformed Himmler (along with Sepp Dietrich) are then nothing more than praetorian guards; they don't even get to stand on the platform! Compared to her later "Triumph," Riefenstahl's "Victory of Faith" is somewhat crude and rough around the edges. This may reflect Leni's inexperience, or it may reflect the fact that the Nazis were not yet firmly in the saddle in Germany and their sense of pagentry was not quite fully developed. Watching Hitler and his cronies celebrate their victory, one gets the sense of an underdog team dazedly celebrating in the clubhouse after an improbable win. They stormed the castle....now what? The answer to that question came a year later, when Rohm was in Stadelheim Prison, awaiting his execution. His mood was philisophical. "All revolutions," he told a visitor a few hours before he was shot, "devour their children." Machiavelli couldn't have said it any better.  Comment (1) | Permalink |  function showYesNoCommunityResponse(uId,result,value) { var msgLayer = getElement("thanks" + uId); if ( result == "SUCCESS" ) { msgLayer.innerHTML = "Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours."; } else { showVoteErrorResponse(msgLayer,result,value); } } (Report this)

Victory of Faith ( Der Sieg des Glaubens ) Available from Amazon Price: $34.95 Updated on 12-5-2008.

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