Disc 1 - Over 60 minutes of rare and original archive footage showing the preparations and actual event to celebrate Hitler's 50th birthday, five months before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Disc 2 - Contains over 60 minutes of bonus archive footage split into 5 films, as well as 3 original photo galleries containing a plethora of color and black and white images.

Bonus Films: 1. Great Military Parade in Berlin 2. Great Military Parade of the Wehrmacht 3. Greater Germany celebrates the 50th Birthday 4. Greater Military Parade on the 50th Birthday 5. 20th April 1939 - Hitler's 50th Birthday

Photo Galleries: 1. Adolf Hitler Chronicle 2. Birthday Pictures 3. 20th April 1939 in color

On the 20th of April 1939, one of the biggest and most elaborate birthday parades to ever be staged in Germany was about to take place. With the day already declared a national holiday by the German government two days before, hundreds of thousands of people came from throughout Germany to the Reich capital to join the celebrations and mark the 50th birthday of Adolf Hitler. With thousands in attendance, including a selection of prominent figures and over 20,000 official guests, the celebration was much more than a birthday parade. With war perilously close, Hitler used this opportunity to show off his military strength and issue a warning to the western powers.

This DVD shows Berlin preparing itself for Adolf Hitler's 50th Birthday parade in 1939 using a selection of rare archive footage, parts of which have been painstakingly restored and can now be presented in color for the first time. Several excerpts used in this documentary were taken by members of the public which have only just been discovered and are presented here for the very first time. These eye witness films help to show an extremely important and personal documentation of the events on that day, five months before the outbreak of the Second World War.

This extraordinary event saw the largest ever Military Parade in the history of the German Army and can now be almost completely reconstructed because of the many positions in which the films were taken. The German Military Forces, numbering close to 50,000 men, marched over the East-West Axis in review past the tribune in which Adolf Hitler stood. Staggeringly, if the troops had been put together in a row they would have reached a length of almost 100 kilometres. To add to the spectacle, a total of 162 warplanes flew over the capital, providing a once-in-a-lifetime display. This special edition two disc set contains over two hours of footage from the event, as well as film showing the preparations and the build up. Combined with bonus galleries crammed with rare and unseen pictures, this DVD documents the event in it's entirety and should appeal to all military enthusiasts.