Who Was Leni Riefenstahl: The Director of Nazi Films | SPIEGEL TV

Aug 17, 2024 | She was Adolf Hitler's favorite director: Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl, known as Leni. As the “Reich film director”, she staged the Nazi mass marches in an overwhelming and aesthetic way, portraying the “Führer” as the savior and his accomplices as his disciples. In this way, Riefenstahl made a decisive contribution to popularizing National Socialism. The images she created of the Olympic Games in 1936 are still considered groundbreaking film art today and contributed to her myth as an innovative filmmaker.

Here are two related documentaries on Leni Riefenstahl: one and two.

Leni Riefenstahl: The Horrible Power of Images

Jan 19, 2025 | Leni Riefenstahl was a pioneering filmmaker and the most significant propagandist of National Socialism. She provided Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels with stylistic grandeur. Riefenstahl transformed them into icons. Her footage of the Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in "Triumph of the Will" and the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin in "Olympia" remain etched in collective memory to this day. In doing so, she created a heroic epic for the Nazis. The American philosopher Susan Sontag coined for this phenomenon the term "fascist aesthetics."

Films, advertising, music videos, and photographers worldwide have drawn inspiration from her style, influencing everything from "Star Wars" to Calvin Klein underwear ads.

Leni Riefenstahl remains a highly controversial figure: What is the responsibility of the artist? What should art do? A new film titled "Leni Riefenstahl," directed by award-winning German filmmaker Andres Veiel, makes the case that art cannot exist independently of political and social circumstances.

Despite her attempts after World War II to distance herself from her actions during the Nazi era — more specifically, to deny them — she never expressed remorse or admitted guilt, nor has she acknowledged or understood the devastating impact of her work.

Recent research, along with a documentary by Andres Veiel, has shed new light on Leni Riefenstahl's life and career. The examination of her estate, which includes 700 previously sealed boxes, has allowed for a reassessment of her influence on film and art history.

The tension between artistic merit and ethical responsibility lies at the heart of the ongoing debate surrounding Riefenstahl's legacy, which remains highly relevant today.

Wer war Leni Riefenstahl: Die Paradefrau des NS-Films | SPIEGEL TV

Aug 17, 2024 | Sie war die Lieblingsregisseurin Adolf Hitlers: Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl, genannt Leni. Als »Reichsfilmregisseurin« inszenierte sie die Massenaufmärsche der Nazis überwältigend und ästhetisch, den »Führer« als Heilsbringer und seine Komplizen als seine Jünger. So trug Riefenstahl entscheidend dazu bei, den Nationalsozialismus populär zu machen. Die Bilder, die sie von der Olympischen Spielen im Jahr 1936 schuf, gelten bis heute als bahnbrechende Film-Kunst und trugen zu ihrem Mythos als innovative Filmemacherin bei.

Spätestens als Riefenstahl im Auftrag Hitlers den Überfall auf Polen dokumentierte, erhielt sie Kenntnis von dem verbrecherischen Charakter des NS-Regimes. Doch Riefenstahl distanzierte sich nicht, pflegte weiter ihre Freundschaft zu Hitler und verkehrte in den höchsten Zirkeln der NS-Elite. Nach dem Krieg streitet sie alle Verstrickungen in die Verbrechen des NS-Regimes ab.

Das NS-Regime und seine Täter. Wie machten die Akteure in Hitlers Reihen Karriere und welche Gräueltaten waren sie bereit umzusetzen? Die Doku-Reihe »Wer war...« porträtiert die NS-Verbrecher mit Archivaufnahmen, Experteninterviews und Rekonstruktionen.

Leni Riefenstahl – Between Hitler and Hollywood | Free Documentary - History

Dec 8, 2023 | She is one of the most radical and controversial artists of the 20th century — Leni Riefenstahl. He is the inventor of the mountain film, camera designer, and film avant-gardist of the 20s—Arnold Fanck. In May 1932 both boarded a ship and departed on a five-month filmmaking voyage to Greenland. Their mission is the first ever German-American feature film production: ‘SOS Iceberg.’ It’s the hitherto riskiest and most expensive film project in history.

The spectacular and life-threatening filming process of ‘SOS Iceberg’ forms the frame of the film, which then deepens to the bottom of the passionate relationship between Fanck and Riefenstahl. While Fanck’s career crashes after ‘SOS Iceberg,’ Riefenstahl sets off with the Nazis taking over in 1933 – the coldly calculated rise at the expense of her mentor Fanck? The documentary shows excerpts from Fanck’s and Riefenstahl’s oeuvre, such as ‘The White Hell of Pitz Palu’ (1929) or ‘Storm over Mont Blanc' (1930). Reinhold Messner, Willy Bogner, and Fanck’s grandson, Matthias Fanck, talk about the pioneering innovations of Fanck’s mountain films.

The deconstruction of the myth surrounding Riefenstahl is also an overdue tribute to the almost forgotten film pioneer Arnold Fanck.