Leni Riefenstahl: Hitler’s favourite filmmaker
Riefenstahl stands near Heinrich Himmler while instructing her camera crew at Nuremberg, 1934.
Ever since movies were invented by the Lumière brothers in France towards the end of the 19th century, most countries have been busy producing films in which their governments appeared to be the best in all possible worlds. I can recall four films, all four propaganda films, which came to Hungary just before or after the war and had a powerful effect on me.
The first one was an American film: Mrs Miniver, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon. It depicted the bulldog spirit reigning in Britain at the worst time ever in her long history when the British Army was threatened by annihilation in Dunkirk. I shall never forget the armada of small boats in the Channel just off on their way to Dunkirk to bring back the boys to fight another battle later.
The second film I saw a little later in this category was directed by Sergey Eisenstein: Battleship Potemkin. That had an unforgettable scene of the rebel seamen running down the Odessa Steps under fire by the Czarist troops. In particular, it featured a perambulator that kept on descending slowly downwards, step by step with the baby inside, after the mother was shot dead. The message was clear: Tyranny is Evil! (Let me note here that Goebbels greatly admired Eisenstein.)
My aim in what follows is to discuss the career of Leni Riefenstahl, who was the leading practitioner of Nazi propaganda, and dwell on the relationship between politics and other human pursuits in a dictatorship. I have already made a start here in my essay in TheArticle on Max Schmeling, whose victories in boxing were used for propaganda purposes by the Third Reich. Riefenstahl knew how to use Hitler’s support to hold her own against the Nazi top brass, including Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher. Maybe this was her decisive advantage. She had Hitler’s unconditional support.
A possible explanation is that she was Hitler’s mistress. Allegedly, this rumour was spread by a jealous Eva Braun. It is an unlikely explanation. Hitler had no mistresses. He was probably asexual. His real love was the NSDAP (National Socialist German Worker’s Party, or Nazi Party). Most likely, he recognised Riefenstahl’s propaganda genius and realised that the best results would be obtained by giving her a free hand.
Talking of Leni Riefenstahl I must mention her film Olympia which I saw in 1938 at the age of 8, just after it came out. For anybody who had any interest in sport it was a revelation how overpowering sport could be. A journalist described the film as a “symphony of the body in motion”. My metaphor would be somewhat different. I would imagine it as a giant concert hall without a roof, with a conductor dressed in black, a mighty baton in hand that controls the show. And that conductor is Leni Riefenstahl. I was particularly impressed by the slow motion pictures, athletes apparently floating above obstacles so much so that I decided to be a high jumper. Unfortunately my best result after a lot of efforts was 1.4 m: not in the Olympic league, but good enough to jump over benches in the University Park when I landed in Oxford 20 years later.
In Olympia the propaganda aspects were not emphasised. It just happened that Germany received the highest number of gold medals, giving Hitler the opportunity to produce a broad smile whenever a German athlete won. He must have been unhappy to see so many black people carrying off gold medals, but he did not frown. He must have thought that “we have been in power for only three years. The Thousand Year Reich will have the will and the time to extinguish all the inferior races.”
The fourth film that I wish to discuss was the Triumph of the Will, also directed by Riefenstahl. My parents did not let me see the film. They were worried that it would cause me nightmares. They were right. All that military display, all that marching, all the martial music were designed to uplift the faithful and instil fear into the heart of the weak that included most younger children. Riefenstahl did well. It was a propaganda masterpiece.
What did Riefenstahl do when the Second World War broke out? It is unlikely that she saw herself as a war correspondent, but she wanted to find out for herself what war was like. She did not expect to see blood and a mass killing of the local Jews on the German-Polish border. She told the nearest general that German soldiers should not behave that way. The general agreed and the offending officer was court-martialed and sentenced to two years in prison. I believe this was the only time on the Eastern front when German atrocities were condemned. Presumably, the perpetrator was let out of prison as soon as it could be done without publicity.
After the Second World War Riefenstahl had to face several denazification tribunals, but escaped punishment partly because she had never joined the Nazi party. Riefenstahl ‘s main line of defence was: “I am an artist. I lived for my art. I never uttered an antisemitic word. I have never been a member of the NSDAP.” That she adored Hitler was well known. I quote from the telegram she sent to Hitler on the occasion of the fall of Paris. “With indescribable joy, deep emotion and filled with profound gratitude we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany’s greatest victory, the marching of German troops into Paris…” Although it was clear to anyone looking at the evidence that she was the Nazis’ greatest propagandist, she managed to convince her judges that she was forced by Hitler to make those films. The conclusion was that her actions were “not in violation of the law” and her last tribunal in Berlin exonerated her.
However, when she tried to rebuild her career, she failed. Riefenstahl was too much associated with the image of Hitler and the Nuremberg rallies. So she made a drastic change of direction. Her new focus was underwater filming, she moved for a time to Africa and chose Africans for her subjects. She published in English a book of photographs titled: The last of the Yuba. She lived her life to the full and died in 2003 at the age of 101.
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