Riefenstahl

Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) is certainly by far the best-known director to have worked for the Nazis, certainly for a contemporary audience. Her enduring fame is due to the cinematic bravura of innovative, still influential propaganda documentaries such as Triumph des Willens (about the Nuremberg party convention, 1934) and Olympia (about the Berlin Games, 1936).

Perhaps equally notorious is the tenacity with which she claimed her historical innocence – and that of her aesthetics. Yes, she was impressed by Hitler, but she had merely seized an opportunity to use her talents.

Andres Veiel, eminent chronicler of recent German history, had access for the first time to a wealth of private material from the estate of Riefenstahl and her partner Horst Kettner, forty years younger, for his fascinating portrait. He did not become any milder. More than in previous films about her, it becomes clear how much Riefenstahl – wallowing in self-righteous victimhood – wanted to be seen in a favourable light. Above all, Veiel shows that Riefenstahl could not have been unaware of the cruel fate of his employees and extras.