Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (German: [ˈleːniː ˈʁiːfn̩ʃtaːl] ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German filmmaker, 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", she is also criticized for her works in the service of propaganda during the Nazi era.
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.
In 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.
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?' defence". Riefenstahl's post-war work includes the release of the film Tiefland in 1954, her work as a photographer, her autobiography in 1987, underwater photographs and two photo books on the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan.
Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl was born in Berlin on 22 August 1902. Her father, Alfred Theodor Paul Riefenstahl, owned a successful heating and ventilation company and wanted his daughter to follow him into the business world. Since Riefenstahl was the only child for several years, Alfred wanted her to carry on the family name and secure the family fortune. However, her mother, Bertha Ida (Scherlach), who had been a part-time seamstress before her marriage, had faith in Riefenstahl and believed that her daughter's future was in show business. Riefenstahl had a younger brother, Heinz, who was killed at the age of 39 on the Eastern Front in Nazi Germany's war against the Soviet Union.
Riefenstahl fell in love with the arts in her childhood. She began to paint and write poetry at the age of four. She was also athletic, and at the age of twelve joined a gymnastics and swimming club called Nixe. Her mother was confident her daughter would grow up to be successful in the field of art and therefore gave her full support, unlike Riefenstahl's father, who was not interested in his daughter's artistic inclinations. In 1918, when she was 16, Riefenstahl attended a presentation of Snow White which interested her deeply; it led her to want to be a dancer. Her father instead wanted to provide his daughter with an education that could lead to a more dignified occupation. His wife, however, continued to support her daughter's passion. Without her husband's knowledge, she enrolled Riefenstahl in dance and ballet classes at the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin, where she quickly became a star pupil.
Riefenstahl attended dancing academies and became well known for her self-styled interpretive dancing skills, traveling across Europe with Max Reinhardt in a show funded by Jewish producer Harry Sokal. Riefenstahl often made almost 700 ℛ︁ℳ︁ for each performance. She began to suffer a series of foot injuries, which led to knee surgery that threatened her dancing career. It was while going to a doctor's appointment that she first saw a poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny. She became inspired to go into movie making, and began visiting the cinema to see films and also attended film shows.
On one of her adventures, Riefenstahl met Luis Trenker, an actor who had appeared in Mountain of Destiny. At a meeting arranged by her friend Gunther Rahn, she met Arnold Fanck, the director of Mountain of Destiny and a pioneer of the mountain film genre. Fanck was working on a film in Berlin. After Riefenstahl told him how much she admired his work, she also convinced him of her acting skill. She persuaded him to feature her in one of his films. Riefenstahl later received a package from Fanck containing the script of the 1926 film The Holy Mountain. She made a series of films for Fanck, where she learned from him acting and film editing techniques. One of Fanck's films that brought Riefenstahl into the limelight was The White Hell of Pitz Palu of 1929, co-directed by G. W. Pabst. She had to undergo many physical challenges that would probably be deemed unethical in today's standards. Some of the torments included: being engulfed in small avalanches, jumping into mountain lakes and icy streams, climbing rocky pinnacles while barefoot, letting herself be pulled up a rock face being pelted by snow and ice, balancing on a ladder above a deep glacial crevasse, and enduring obscene jokes from her exclusively male colleagues. Her fame spread to countries outside Germany.
Riefenstahl produced and directed her own work called Das Blaue Licht ("The Blue Light") in 1932, co-written by Carl Mayer and Béla Balázs. This film won the silver medal at the Venice Film Festival, but was not universally well-received, for which Riefenstahl blamed the critics, many of whom were Jewish. Upon its 1938 re-release, the names of Balázs and Sokal, both Jewish, were removed from the credits; some reports say this was at Riefenstahl's behest. In the film, Riefenstahl played an innocent peasant girl who is hated by the villagers because they think she is diabolical and cast out. She is protected by a glowing mountain grotto. According to herself, Riefenstahl received invitations to travel to Hollywood to create films, but she refused them in favor of remaining in Germany with a boyfriend. Hitler was a fan of the film, and thought Riefenstahl epitomized the perfect German female. He saw talent in Riefenstahl and arranged a meeting.
In 1933, Riefenstahl appeared in the U.S.-German co-productions of the Arnold Fanck-directed, German-language SOS Eisberg and the Tay Garnett-directed, English-language S.O.S. Iceberg. The films were filmed simultaneously in English and German and produced and distributed by Universal Studios. Her role as an actress in S.O.S. Iceberg was her only English language role in film.
Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker. Describing the experience in her memoir, Riefenstahl wrote, "I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the Earth's surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth."
Hitler was immediately captivated by Riefenstahl's work. She is described as fitting in with Hitler's ideal of Aryan womanhood, a feature he had noted when he saw her starring performance in Das Blaue Licht. In May 1933, Hitler asked Riefenstahl to make a film about Horst Wessel, but she declined. Riefenstahl was offered the opportunity to direct Der Sieg des Glaubens, an hour-long propaganda film about the fifth Nuremberg Rally in 1933. The opportunity that was offered was a huge surprise to Riefenstahl. Hitler had ordered Joseph Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry to give the film commission to Riefenstahl, but the Ministry had never informed her. Riefenstahl agreed to direct the movie even though she was only given a few days before the rally to prepare. She and Hitler got on well, forming a friendly relationship. The propaganda film was funded entirely by the NSDAP.