Foreign guests at the Nuremberg rally, 1937

At the entrance of a stone building with tall wrought-iron grille doors, Italian officers in black shirts and tasselled fezzes stand with Germans in uniform and overcoats; one with a broad face grins into the lens, a senior officer in grey coat and embroidered fez talks with younger men, and cars wait on the wet street outside. On the same pavement a man in a broad-brimmed field hat stands beside a German official, hands on hips; a man with glasses and moustache in a beret with a small star laughs beside a younger man in a dark tasselled side cap, an SS sentry behind them.

The rally drew delegations from friendly and courted states. Black shirt and fez were the dress of the Fascist militia; less than two weeks after the rally, from 25 to 29 September 1937, Mussolini himself came to Germany on a state visit. The insignia of the other guests point to Spain, where Franco's side in the civil war was receiving German aircraft and the men of the Condor Legion, but this delegation is not securely identified.