The Nuremberg Congress as a 'Prodigious Spectacle': A Mass Ceremony Under the Third Reich

Extract

[...] Our Pre-War - Robert Brasillach (1941) - A Mass Ceremony Seen by a Frenchman External Criticism Robert Brasillach was a French far-right author and journalist. His work Our Pre-War This takes place from 1925 to 1939. Through a series of memories, the author gives his testimony of his years between the wars, and notably the rise of Nazi power. Identify by a colored code in < u >italic the text: - The spaces: « At the Zeppenlinfeld, outside the city, an immense stadium"; "At the stands"; "in the arena"; "the stadium"; "the immense stadium"; "the entrance to the stadium at the tribune"; "the enclosure"; "the countryside"" - The participants: « a hundred thousand people seated"; "two or three hundred thousand"; "the battalions of work, the men of the Arbeitskorp"; "They leave the stadium, they re-enter, the chiefs of the work service follow them, the chest bare, then the young girls"; "the master"; "this enormous crowd"; "of its officiants and spectators"; "the massive and immobile battalions of the S.A"; "the Führer"; "his staff"; "the man standing"; "the Chancellor standing"; "Hitler" - The colors and lighting effects: « The swastika flags, under the blazing sun"; "shining"; "barely lit by a few spotlights"; "wearing brown"; thousand spotlights"; "have been lit, aimed vertically at the sky"; thousand blue pillars"; "will shine all night"; "the cathedral of light"; "the brown groups"; "the only light is that of the unreal and blue cathedral"; "the gaze of a spotlight has fallen"; "red mass"; "purple lava"; "brown granite"; "the vault striped with blue"; "wide red flows"} , { - The sounds: « thunder"; "music"; "they sing, the drum rolls"; "he speaks"; "the burst of applause from the crowd"; "the dull sound of footsteps"; "cries"; "we sing"; "the soldiers' song"; "other songs"; "these beautiful dark and multiple voices"; "the musical enchantment"} , { - The telluric metaphor and explain what it means for the Nazis: « the skin on the shoulder"; "they present the skins"; "Are you ready to fertilize the German earth?"; supernatural and mineral silence"} , { Nazism defends that the Germanic 'race' is natural, and therefore linked to the earth. [...]

[...] Based on this example, summarize the objectives of a mass event. A mass event aims to unite the people around a single figure. Here, all means of representation are used to create a union between each individual so that each silence and each chant become one, and the individual disappears to form a single nation, united politically, under the Third Reich. [...]

[...] - The religious ritual « the mass of work"; "the sacred place of the national mystery"; "the cathedral"} , { 3. Based on this thematic mapping, show that the Nuremberg Congress is a 'prodigious spectacle' in the literal sense of the term. The Nuremberg Congress is a 'prodigious spectacle' because it is a spectacular representation. The large number of participants and spectators, the carefully prepared lighting and color effects, and the contrast between the respectful silence and the unified chant of the men in the stadium create the spectacular nature of the event. 4. [...]