[1] The film contains excerpts of speeches given by Nazi leaders at the Congress, including Hitler, Rudolf Hess and Julius Streicher, interspersed with footage of massed Sturmabteilung (SA) and Schutzstaffel (SS) troops and public reaction.

Riefenstahl's techniques—such as moving cameras, aerial photography, the use of long-focus lenses to create a distorted perspective, and the revolutionary approach to the use of music and cinematography—have earned Triumph of the Will recognition as one of the greatest propaganda films in history.

[2] During World War II, Frank Capra's seven-film series Why We Fight was directly inspired by Triumph of the Will and the United States' response to it.

[3] In present-day Germany, the film is not censored but the courts commonly classify it as Nazi propaganda, which requires an educational context for public screenings.

[5] The film begins with a prologue establishing the present-day as 5 September 1934 and the elapsed time since World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler's appointment as chancellor, climaxing in his visit to Nuremberg on that day.

Following this is a montage of the attendees preparing for the opening of the Reich Party Congress, and footage of the top Nazi officials arriving at the Luitpold Arena.

The camera then introduces much of the Nazi hierarchy and covers their opening speeches, including Joseph Goebbels, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Fritz Todt, Robert Ley and Julius Streicher.

Everyone present, including General Werner von Blomberg, then assemble for a military pass and review, featuring Wehrmacht cavalry and various armored vehicles.

Hitler, flanked by Heinrich Himmler and Viktor Lutze, walks through a long wide expanse with over 150,000 SA and SS troops standing at attention, to lay a wreath at a First World War memorial.

[6] Hitler was impressed with Das blaue Licht, and in 1933 asked her to direct a film about the Nazis' annual Nuremberg Rally, which became Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Victory of Faith).

[7] Hitler chose Riefenstahl as he wanted the film as "artistically satisfying"[8] as possible to appeal to a non-political audience, but he also believed that propaganda must admit no element of doubt.

[9] The Victory of Faith faced numerous technical problems, including a lack of preparation (Riefenstahl reported having just a few days) and Hitler's apparent unease at being filmed.

Riefenstahl claimed that the film was financed by her own efforts and a distribution agreement with Ufa, but received a large amount of financial support from the Nazis directly and indirectly through construction projects for the rally.

Pits were dug in front of the speakers' platform so Riefenstahl could get the camera angles she wanted, and tracks were laid so that her cameramen could get traveling shots of the crowd.

He was disappointed that Riefenstahl was not going to include the footage in the final film due to the poor quality caused by bad weather during the military exercises.

For her efforts, Riefenstahl was rewarded with the German Film Prize (Deutscher Filmpreis), a gold medal at the 1935 Venice Biennale, and the Grand Prix at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris.

The Independent wrote in 2003: "Triumph of the Will seduced many wise men and women, persuaded them to admire rather than to despise, and undoubtedly won the Nazis friends and allies all over the world.

"[27] Clips from Triumph of the Will were also used in an Allied propaganda short called General Adolph Takes Over,[28] set to the British dance tune "The Lambeth Walk".

The Danish resistance used to take over cinemas and force the projectionist to show Swinging the Lambeth Walk (as it was also known); Erik Barrow has said: "The extraordinary risks were apparently felt justified by a moment of savage anti-Hitler ridicule.

"[29] Also during World War II, the poet Dylan Thomas wrote a screenplay for and narrated These Are The Men, a propaganda piece using Triumph of the Will footage to discredit Nazi leadership.

"[31] For a director who made eight films, only two of which received significant coverage outside of Germany, Riefenstahl had unusually high name recognition for the remainder of her life, most of it stemming from Triumph of the Will.

After the war, Riefenstahl was imprisoned by the Allies for four years[citation needed] for allegedly being a Nazi sympathizer and was permanently blacklisted by the film industry.

When she died in 2003—sixty-eight years after the film's premiere—her obituary received significant coverage in many major publications, including the Associated Press,[32] The Wall Street Journal,[33] The New York Times,[34] and The Guardian,[35] most of which reaffirmed the importance of Triumph of the Will.

However, Roger Ebert has observed that for some, "the very absence of anti-semitism in Triumph of the Will looks like a calculation; excluding the central motif of almost all of Hitler's public speeches must have been a deliberate decision to make the film more efficient as propaganda.

Because they project the complex movements of intelligence and grace and sensuousness, these two films of Riefenstahl (unique among works of Nazi artists) transcend the categories of propaganda or even reportage.

Riefenstahl unsuccessfully sued the Swedish production company Minerva-Film for copyright violation, although she did receive forty thousand marks in compensation from German and Austrian distributors of the film.

[note 1] The targeted-at-Nazis film was a parody of "The Lambeth Walk," a British dance that had been popular in swing clubs in Germany and was denounced by the Nazis as "Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping.

[45] Frank Capra used significant footage, with a mocking narration in the first installment of the propagandistic film produced by the United States Army Why We Fight as an exposure of Nazi militarism and totalitarianism to American soldiers and sailors.

Hartwig argued that the rights belonged to the state, but reportedly eventually paid compensation to Riefenstahl, who donated it to a charity dedicated to returning prisoners of war.

[52] These rights are administered by the federally owned Transit-Film GmbH based in Munich, although it was contractually regulated in 1974 that any public screening until 2004 had to be approved by Riefenstahl and that she received 70% of all revenues.