Assignment:
A. Benito Mussolini visits a youth camp, where recruits to his Black Shirts were in training, 1935/
B. Image from Leni Rienfenstahl's Triumph of the Will (1935), a film about a Nazi party rally in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1934.
C. Women of the British Union of Fascists model their uniforms.
Like other revolutionary movements, fascism in Italy and national socialism in Germany needed to project an image of popular support for their political programs. As far back as the French Revolution of 1789, representations of "the people" as political actors took on special significance in revolutionary propaganda (see Interpreting Visual Evidence on page 606). Both Hitler and Mussolini understood how to use such images to create the impression of an organic and seamless connection between the party's leadership and the rank and file who made up the movement.
Representations of the people in nineteenth-century liberal revolutionary movements emphasized an activist definition of political participation, as citizens came together to constitute a national body that reflected the will of the movements. Both Italian fascism and German national socialism defined themselves in opposition to democratic or parliamentary regimes, explicitly rejecting the individualism that was the basis for liberal citizenship.
In their orchestration of public celebrations for their programs, both fascists and national socialists emphasized images of obedience and subordination to the leader (image A) and to the national movement (image B). Although the pageantry of fascism and national socialism typically emphasized an aggressively masculine image of enthusiastic devotion, most fascist movements also organized special female sections within their movements. In these groups, women would clothe themselves in uniforms (image C), as did their male counterparts, and express their own allegiance to the spirit of self-sacrifice that was at the heart of such collective movements.
Questions for Analysis
Write out your answers to the questions below in a short paragraph for each.
1. Each of these images was carefully staged and orchestrated to project a specific message. What are the messages implied in these images? What details are important?
2. What do these images tell us about the place of the individual in a fascist society?
3. What sense of belonging do you think these images are designed to produce? What made such images so attractive to so many people?