Riefenstahl in a 1930s postcard honoring her for the propaganda film Olympia
Born
Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl
(1902-08-22)22 August 1902
Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died
8 September 2003(2003-09-08) (aged 101)
Pöcking, Germany
Resting place
Munich Waldfriedhof
Citizenship
Germany
Sudan
Occupations
Film director
producer
screenwriter
photographer
actress
dancer
author
Years active
1925–2002
Known for
Triumph of the Will
Olympia
Tiefland
Spouse
Eugen Karl "Peter" Jacob
(m. 1944; div. 1946)
Partner
Horst Kettner [fr] (from 1968)
Website
leni-riefenstahl.de
Signature
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (German:[ˈleː.niːˈʁiː.fn̩.ʃtaːl]ⓘ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer and actress known for producing Nazi propaganda.[1][2][3]
A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl became interested in dancing during her childhood, taking lessons and performing across Europe. After seeing a promotional poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny, she was inspired to move into acting and between 1925 and 1929 starred in five successful motion pictures. Riefenstahl became one of the few women in Germany to direct a film during the Weimar era when, in 1932, she decided to try directing with her own film, The Blue Light.[4]
In the latter half of the 1930s, she directed the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), resulting in worldwide attention and acclaim. The films are widely considered two of the most effective and technically innovative propaganda films ever made. Her involvement in Triumph of the Will, however, significantly damaged her career and reputation after World War II. Adolf Hitler closely collaborated with Riefenstahl during the production of at least three important Nazi films, and they formed a friendly relationship.[5][6]
After the war, Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi "fellow traveller" but was not charged with war crimes. Throughout her later life, she denied having known about the Holocaust, and was criticized as the "voice of the 'how could we have known?' defense."[7][8][9] Riefenstahl's postwar work included an autobiography book and two photography books on the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan.
^"Leni Riefenstahl ou le talent artistique au service d'une entreprise de mort – La cinéaste officielle du régime hitlérien aura cent ans le 22 août. Un destin qui épouse l'histoire du XXe siècle et pose la question des liens entre esthétique et idéologie". Le Monde.fr. 15 August 2002.
^"La cinéaste allemande Leni Riefenstahl est morte – La réalisatrice allemande Leni Riefenstahl, qui mit sa caméra au service d'Hitler, est décédée lundi soir à l'âge de 101 ans, selon une journaliste se présentant comme très proche". Le Monde.fr. 9 September 2003.
^"Leni Riefenstahl, artiste asservie au nazisme". Le Monde.fr (in French). 10 September 2003. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
^Barker, Jennifer (2010). "Indifference, Identification, and Desire in Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, Leni Riefenstahl's The Blue Light and Triumph of the Will, and Leontine Sagan's Maedchen in Uniform". Women in German Yearbook. 26 (1). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press: 73–96. doi:10.5250/womgeryearbook.26.1.0073. JSTOR 10.5250/womgeryearbook.26.1.0073. S2CID 142865328.
^Downing 2012, p. 23.
^Scheinberg, Robert (4 September 1997). "Award to German filmmaker spurs debate on her role as propagandist". JTA News. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 27 February 2017. 'Without the Riefenstahls of the world in the 1930s, the Shoah might not have happened. I would consider her an unindicted co-conspirator.' (Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center)
^Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Kakutani, Michiko (13 May 2007). "Triumph of Willful Blindness to the Horror of History". The New York Times. Riefenstahl would repeatedly ignore or deny news reports of anti-Semitic atrocities in Germany. Mr. Bach reports that she claimed not to believe reports about Kristallnacht, shrugging it off as slander on her homeland, and that during a 1938-39 trip to the United States, she told a reporter that as an artist she could not be expected to know about events, even if the rest of the world did. . . . In 1940, with the fall of Paris, Riefenstahl wrote Hitler an ecstatic telegram: 'With indescribable joy, deeply moved and filled with burning gratitude, we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany's greatest victory, the entry of German troops into Paris. You exceed anything human imagination has the power to conceive, achieving deeds without parallel in the history of mankind.' This from a woman who wanted history to see her simply as an artist, who falsely denied ever making anti-Semitic statements, who implausibly claimed she knew next to nothing about Hitler's persecution of the Jews, a woman who never acknowledged moral accountability for the role her movies played in promoting Hitler and his cause . . . .
^Connolly, Kate (9 December 2021). "Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman's lifelong crusade against Hitler's favourite film-maker". The Guardian. Jürgen Trimborn, author of a highly critical biography published in 2002, declared that there was "no evidence that, due to her proximity to the regime, Riefenstahl knew more than others did about the mass annihilation of the Jews. But it is obvious that, like most Germans, she knew enough to be sure that it was better not to know even more." (Gladitz would later judge this analysis as far too generous.)
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (German: [ˈleː.niː ˈʁiː.fn̩.ʃtaːl] ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German director, producer, screenwriter...
of LeniRiefenstahl (German: Die Macht der Bilder: LeniRiefenstahl) is a 1993 German documentary film about the life of German film director Leni Riefenstahl...
Nazi propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by LeniRiefenstahl. Adolf Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive...
filming them for a national and international audience. Nazi filmmaker LeniRiefenstahl produced some of her best known work including Triumph of the Will...
Victory of the Faith) is the first Nazi propaganda film directed by LeniRiefenstahl. Her film recounts the Fifth Party Rally of the Nazi Party, which occurred...
of the Nuba is the English-language title of German film director LeniRiefenstahl's 1973 Die Nuba, a book of photographs, published a year later in the...
Performance by an Actress for her role as Nazi-era German filmmaker LeniRiefenstahl in Jordan Harrison's Amazons and Their Men. She also acted in several...
directed by LeniRiefenstahl. After the premiere of her film Tiefland in 1954, for decades it was generally thought this would be Riefenstahl's last film...
televised, with radio broadcasts reaching 41 countries. Filmmaker LeniRiefenstahl was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games...
moving the flame via a relay system from Greece to the Olympic venue. LeniRiefenstahl filmed the relay for the award-winning but controversial 1938 film...
with the title The Mountaineers. After seeing Mountain of Destiny, LeniRiefenstahl, then a dancer, decided she wanted to start appearing in films. She...
Heilbronn. During the Nazi regime in Germany, he worked as a cameraman for LeniRiefenstahl; from 1939 to 1945, he was closely associated with photographing and...
of the 1976 English-language translation of German film director LeniRiefenstahl's Die Nuba von Kau, an illustrated book, published in the same year...
Goebbels, or by excelling in particular fields, such as filmmaker LeniRiefenstahl or aviator Hanna Reitsch. Many restrictions on women were lifted once...
1938: LeniRiefenstahl, Hollywood, and the Kristallnacht" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2024. "Leni Isn't...
the Nazi-associated filmmaker Leni: The Life and Work of LeniRiefenstahl (2007) overturns many of the claims Riefenstahl put forward in her self-defence...
Reich. He was best known for his collaborations with the director LeniRiefenstahl on films Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Windt studied at the Sternsches...