Hitler's 50th Birthday Celebration

Date: April 20, 1939 • Location: Tiergarten, Germany

Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday was celebrated as a national holiday throughout Nazi Germany on 20 April 1939. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels made sure the events organised in Berlin were a lavish spectacle focusing on Hitler himself. The festivities included a military parade with some 40,000 to 50,000 German troops taking part, along with 162 Luftwaffe airplanes flying overhead. The parade was intended in part as a warning to the Allied powers of Nazi Germany's military capabilities. The parade lasted for more than four hours, with 20,000 official guests, along with several hundred thousand spectators being present.