Wehrmacht Day on the Zeppelin Field, 1937

Columns of light tanks wheel across the wide sandy field, past packed stands and dense blocks of men drawn up under swastika banners. Horse teams gallop by with limbers and guns, squadrons of cavalry wheel before the white podium, half-tracks tow heavy guns over the grass. Anti-aircraft guns with raised barrels flash through the powder smoke, and under a heavy sky aircraft pass over the grandstand with its stone fire bowl. Spectators stand on folding chairs and crane their necks; then infantry run across the grass, throw themselves down among white clouds of smoke and spring up again, and the tanks roll forward to the final assault.

Wehrmacht Day closed every party rally. In 1937 the army, rebuilt since the return of conscription in March 1935, showed the public its tank units and a mock battle. The war minister who presided, Werner von Blomberg, was forced from office five months later, and Hitler himself took command of the Wehrmacht.