Original color handbill advertising the

famous Hitler Youth documentary film

Der Marsch zum Führer / The March to

the Führer. (1940)

This original 1940 Gaufilmstelle (Regional Film Distribution Network) A4 (ca. 9 x 12 inch) colour  one-sided handbill promoted the film to audiences across the Third Reich.

The film commemorated the annual march by the HJ from the four corners of Germany to the Nürnberg Party Day rallies held in early September each year.

The background article on the film below announces that production has started (December 1938) and the film was finished by mid-1939 but the outbreak of the Polish campaign and cancellation of that year's Adolf-Hitler-March (and all subsequent ones) put the film on the proverbial back-burner.  It was finally released in late January 1940 and remains one of the best HJ short films.

[note that the working title in 1938 for the film was March step Germany but by the time of cinema release the title had become The March to the Führer.]

“March step Germany” - A film of the German Youth

Around 15 July 1938, the first footage of a film was shot in Bergen on the island of Rügen, which was intended to join the great German documentary films available to date: the film of the Adolf -Hitler-March of German Youth. For more than two months, cameramen and sound trucks were on the road on behalf of the Reich Youth Leadership to record all phases of the great confession march of the German Youth in sound and vision. This is the first time that the Reich Youth Leadership has decided to produce a film on its own, a film that will show the German people their Youth as they really are.

27 March Units of all HJ areas carried the banner flags of the HJ to the Führer in a long march through the whole German countryside to Nuremberg. In all districts of the German Reich, the flags of the HJ were flying, and everywhere the boys were warmly welcomed by the population and given a hospitable reception. The Reich Youth Leadership has given the film work the working title "Marschtritt Deutschland" (Marching Germany), and it is as if this title reflects something of the impetuous and propulsive force that animated the flag march of the German Youth and which is now to find a pictorial expression in the film of the AdoIf-Hitler-March. "The march of the boys towards Nuremberg sounded on all the country roads of the Reich, and the German people stood on all the roads of the Reich, men, women and children stood and saluted the flags of the National Socialist youth. And when these flags then passed the Führer in Nuremberg, when the Führer saluted the flags of the youth in the Youth Rally, the love of the whole German people was with them. "I am relying on you, blindly and confidently," the Führer called out to the young people in the Youth Rally, and the cry of enthusiasm that roared in response to the Führer was the expression of the love and faith of the German youth for the Führer, this faith that was in the Adolf-Hitler- March finds its symbolic expression. When the participants had returned to their hometowns and the colourful, festive life of the city of the Reich Party Rallies had already given way to the grey everyday life, the flag bearers of the Hitler Youth marched on to Landsberg am Lech. In the courtyard of the fortress at Landsberg, they gathered to make a confession of faith in the face of the Führer's fortress cell, the reflection of which takes away some of the gloomy heaviness even from the grey walls of the fortress.

This year, the cameramen and sound engineers are everywhere. Many experiences, large and small, have been captured on film and are now being edited into the film that will resurrect the march and bring this march of faith closer not only to the German youth but also to the entire German people. This commitment to the common good is the vital idea behind the film throw of Adolf-Hitler-March.

The difficulties that had to be overcome will not be discussed here. If ever a film work was fuelled by enthusiasm, it was the work of young people who set out to show German youth as they see themselves. And all the burghers and peasants, all the city fathers and officials who greeted the youth during their march, we will see again on the screen. The flags have flown in all parts of the Reich, and all the landscapes of the Reich will come together to form a colorful mosaic and provide the background for the film of the Adolf-Hitler-March. Nobody knows the boys who marched through the streets with flags for months: they were representatives of the large community of German youth. This commitment to the community is the creative idea behind the Adolf-Hitler -March film. That's why this film will one day make its way into the German people as a "community work of the German youth" and as a commitment to the great community of the entire German people.


Article translated from PARTEI & FILM- GAUPROPAGANDA-LEITUNG HAUPTSTELLE FILM, Dezember 1938, Frankfurt/Main

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