From the Heavens
The veritable flood of imagery overflows through Triumph of the Will commences with its infamous opening sequence of the plane carrying Hitler to Nuremberg flying through the clouds. The point of this entire film is propaganda and it begins with this image of Hitler literally arriving from the heavens to deign to touch ground on the same earth shared by mere mortals.
Shiny, Happy People
Everywhere are images of happiness and content with the state of things. The common people are always and only seen with smiling faces to the point that as significant as every smile show comes to be, equally important is every unsmiling face that is not show. That there were plenty of German faces not toothy with broad, happy expressions is undeniable. The subtlety of this propaganda device is perhaps underappreciated. What the film is subtly urging supporters of Hitler to ask about people they afterward see not smiling is downright sinister.
Geometry
The film uses geometry as imagery to support one of its thematic foundations as propaganda. The only person who is given any semblance of individuality is Hitler himself. By calculated design, individuality in every other instance is crushed into the powder of “the German people.” This calculation uses the starkly drawn geometrical design of the crowd inside the stadium at the rally, the soldiers goose-stepping, the positioning of flags, the faithful with their arms stretched out in a “heil Hitler” salute, and other examples both to associate Hitler with being uniquely their savior and to inculcate the message that Nazi success depends upon obedience not to the self, but to that savior. As a result, every single other individual but Hitler is actually merely part of the German people with nothing special about them to stake any claim upon.
German Superiority, Hitler Superiority
Right from the opening titles, a pattern of verbal imagery is established which persistently seeks to implicate the German nation, its culture and its people as special and therefore deserving of better treatment than it has received from non-German nations, cultures and people. Within that imagery is also the directive to associate Hitler as the embodiment of the German identity. The film commences with on-screen titles referring specifically to “Germany's Passion” and “the German Rebirth.” Rudolf Hess in his speech opening the Party Congress suggests that non-Germans won’t be intellectually capable of comprehending what Hitler means to Germany until long after every living German is long dead. The linkage of the very special qualities of the German nation to Hitler specifically is connected the association of truth and justice by Hitler’s own personal attorney:
"As chief of the German justice system, I can only say that since…we know how sacred the principles of justice are to our Führer, we can assure you, fellow citizens, that your life and existence is secure in this National Socialist State of order, freedom, and law!”
