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Leni Riefenstahl

Early Life and Career

Photo

Leni Riefenstahl (Photo)

Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl, taken before 1945.

Credits:
  • US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Joanne Schartow

Born in Berlin on August 22, 1902, Riefenstahl began her long and extraordinary career as an interpretive dancer. After a knee injury temporarily halted her vocation, Riefenstahl became fascinated with the possibilities of the medium of film, especially nature films. She became the star of a number of German director Arnold Fanck's silent motion pictures, typically set in the Alps (so-called Bergfilme), in which the young Riefenstahl figured as the athletic and daring female lead.

Popular as an actress with German audiences in the silent era, Riefenstahl directed her first major feature film, Das blaue Licht (The Blue Light), in 1932. The film was well received, and more importantly attracted the attention of a rising politician who prided himself on having artistic ambitions, Adolf Hitler. In the same year, Riefenstahl had heard Hitler speak at a public rally and was rive

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Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl | Jewish Book Council

In a life that spanned more than a cen­tu­ry, Leni Riefen­stahl main­tained that she had lived only for art. Dancer, actress, direc­tor, film­mak­er, and pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Riefen­stahl was pro­pelled to inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion by her tal­ent, fierce ambi­tion, iron will— and her com­pelling doc­u­men­taries Tri­umph of the Will and Olympia that embod­ied the ethos of the Third Reich. But to the end of her life, Riefen­stahl insist­ed that her films were apo­lit­i­cal and that she was unaware of the poli­cies of the regime she worked under. 

To these asser­tions Steven Bach brings much new and con­vinc­ing evi­dence, from Joseph Goebbels’ diaries to pre­vi­ous­ly unknown record­ings and pho­tos of Riefen­stahl to per­son­al inter­views with her col­leagues and con­tem­po­raries, indi­cat­ing that Reifen­stahl was a know­ing and enthu­si­as­tic par­tic­i­pant in the pro­pa­gan­da arm of the Third Reich. Coun­ter­ing Reifenstahl’s tear­ful and con­stant­ly revised accounts of her wartim

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Leni Riefenstahl

German filmmaker (1902–2003)

Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (German:[ˈleː.niːˈʁiː.fn̩.ʃtaːl]ⓘ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, producer, writer, editor, photographer and actress. She is considered one of the most controversial personalities in film history. Regarded by many critics as an "innovative filmmaker and creative aesthete",[1] she is also criticized for her works in the service of propaganda during the Nazi era.[2][3][4]

A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl became interested in dancing during her childhood, taking lessons and performing across all 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.[5]

In the latter half of the 1930s,

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