Documentary film from a National Socialist perspective on the political development of Germany from the First World War to the annexation of Austria by the German Wehrmacht. The film is presumably one of a series of films intended to convince voters of the achievements of the NSDAP and Adolf Hitler in particular in the run-up to the referendum and Reichstag elections on April 10, 1938

Using exclusively archival footage, Erwin Leiser traces the rise and collapse of the Third Reich, from Adolf Hitler’s early years to the devastation of Europe and his suicide in 1945. The film draws heavily on material produced and preserved by the Nazi propaganda apparatus to confront the mechanisms, imagery, and consequences of totalitarian power.