Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl: Victim or Nazi?

Leni Riefenstahl was a German filmmaker through most of the 20^th century. Her contributions to the art are spectacular: multiple simultaneous camera use, cameras on rails, cranes on the set. She is often hailed as a groundbreaking filmmaker, one of the most important of the 1900s. But her career is tainted because of her work with the Nazi party and apparent close relationship with Hitler. After World War II, Riefenstahl claimed that her ideas and actions were misunderstood. What does time tell us now about Leni Riefenstahl?

Leni Riefenstahl began her career as an actress and dancer. When she was injured in the early 1920s, she turned to the other side of the camera and learned about filming. Upon recovery, she continued to act, apparently gaining a fan named Adolf Hitler.

In her memoir, Riefenstahl claims she heard Hitler speak at a rally, and that is where his charisma captivated her. Like so many other Germans in the early 1930s, she felt that Hitler was a man who could lead Germany back to the powerful nation it had been in the past. She requested a meeting with him, and thus began her relationship with the Nazi party.

She created a number of films including Victory of Faith about a Nazi rally and another the next year, Triumph of the Will, that is generally considered Riefenstahl's masterpiece. Hitler was impressed with her work and so asked her to film the next year's rally as well as the 1936 Olympics. Olympia is one of the films that used so many groundbreaking concepts, such as the camera following the athlete on a track.

Riefenstahl's own attitude about these films is part of what makes her motivation confusing. She claimed she never wanted to make propaganda films and was upset that people viewed Triumph of the Will as such, supposedly refusing then to make any more similar films. The rally that next year was filled with anti-Jewish sentiment, and Riefenstahl denied having created the film until proof was found.

Riefenstahl was in the U.S. when kristallnacht occurred, the first major attack upon the Jewish people in Nazi controlled areas that landed thousands in concentration camps. She announced that Hitler could not be responsible for such a thing. She returned to Germany and continued working on films Hitler supported, sometimes financially.

After the War and Hitler's death, Riefenstahl was accused a number of times of war crimes but was never found guilty. She continued to insist that she did not want to make propaganda films for the Nazi Party and even said she wished she had never met Hitler.

Much of this evidence seems to point to Riefenstahl's knowledge that she was creating Nazi propaganda. Her denial of the third rally film is particularly damning-why refuse connection to this film and not the previous two? How could she continue to have a close personal and professional relationship with Hitler without having some idea of the atrocities he was guilty of?

The answer may lie in the period itself. As mentioned, many Germans were excited about Hitler's potential as a powerful leader. Likewise, many were horrified when they found out the extent of his plan. It was not a time when people spoke out publically against the government, as kristallnacht and other pogroms and assassinations showed. Perhaps Riefenstahl was too afraid to refuse after having been pulled in without full knowledge of the Nazi agenda.

Some even claim she was a savior for many Jews during the war. Prisoners from concentration camps were used in Tiefland. Records show that these prisoners and gypsies from the area were sent to Auschwitz after filming completed. However, Riefenstahl's book claims she didn't know that would happen, and she also says she met them after the war and found that they all survived, a comment unsubstantiated.

Leni Riefenstahl will continue to be a controversial figure. Her pioneering efforts in film will always be tainted by her connection to the Nazi Party and the atrocities of World War II. Even her work contains the massive contrasts of the hate speech and swastika from the rallies to the image of Jesse Owens winning his gold medals. Leni Riefenstahl's legacy will never be as clear.

References:

Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl. Picador Publishing, 1995.

Matthews and Platt. The Western Humanities. McGraw-Hill Publishing, 1995.