The parades, ceremonies, bands and saluting used so effectively to prime young Aryans, no longer took place only on the great Nazi festivals like the National Day of Labour (with which Hitler had replaced May Day), but were re-enacted every Sunday in every city, every town and every village. This weekly ‘collective madness’, as Guérin described it, began at 7 a.m. with loudspeakers blaring out the Nazi anthem, the ‘Horst Wessel’ song, and continued until the inevitable torchlight parade, close to midnight.
