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In the 1960s, possessed of remark-
hour-long feature about a party rally at
able
stamina, Riefenstahl took a lover
Nuremberg.
40
years
her junior and turned to
Impressed, Hitler gave her a huge
photography.
It wasn't long before she
budget, countless crew and control
was
claiming
falsely
to have discovered
of the editing for her next homage,
the
Nuba
tribe
in
Sudan.
In 1972, she
which
made
both
Triumph of the Will,
lied
yet
again,
this
time
about
her age,
Hitler and his glamorous "soul mate"
to
become
certified
as
a
scuba
diver,
international stars and, says Bach,
hoping
to
reinvent
herself
as
a
rival to
helped "erect the facade that diverted
Jacques Cousteau.
the rest of the world from Hitler's true
After almost three decades of liti-
plans and goals."
gious denial and globe trotting, she
By 1936, Riefenstahl had earned
survived a helicopter crash in 2000 in
a new sobriquet — "crevasse of the
the Sudan before releasing her final
Third Reich" — because of alleged
film, Underwater Impressions, timed
sexual liaisons with prominent Nazis,
including the Fuhrer himself Certainly to coincide with her centennial. One
reviewer described her last offering
her influence was such that she was
as "the world's most beautiful screen-
able to place herself center-stage dur-
saver." Another wit recommended that
ing the Olympic Games in Berlin,
becoming the highly visible director of she rename it Triumph of the Gill.
Riefenstahl was no longer a "Nazi
Olympiad, a celebration not so much
of the Olympic spirit as of
"Strength Through Joy," the
Nazi slogan aimed at pro-
Author Steven Bach
moting Aryan superiority.
reveals the truths
Brilliantly constructed,
and lies behind
the four-hour-long epic
Riefenstahl's lifelong
made her a fortune as well
self-vindication as an
as the most high-profile
apolitical artist who
woman in the Third Reich.
claimed she knew
It failed to gain distribution
nothing about the
in Britain, however, and
Holocaust.
was shunned, along with its
director, by Hollywood fol-
lowing Kristallnacht.
slut',' as she had been called in 1945,
Riefenstahl remained in the spot-
but she remained a shark to the end,
light as the forces she had heralded
trying to disinherit her niece and
then engulfed Europe. This time she
nephew, as well as to flog footage from
wore a pistol at her hip and a uniform,
her propaganda classics by using an
tagging along with storm troopers
alias.
as they invaded Poland, then filming
When Hollywood finally knocked on
Hitler's final victory parade in Warsaw.
her door, she rejected the actress Jodie
In 1940, after Paris had also fallen, she
Foster's request to turn her life into a
sent the Fuhrer a congratulatory tele-
movie because she could not have con-
gram, adding for good measure: "You
trol. According to Bach, she then told
exceed anything human imagination
the press that "Foster was not beautiful
has the power to conceive, achieving
deeds without parallel in the history of enough to play her on-screen. She saw
Sharon Stone in the role."
mankind."
Bach's is a masterful account, a
Inevitably, Riefenstahl's career col-
terrific piece of detective work that
lapsed among the ruins of the Third
manages to humanize its subject while
Reich but not before she had used
convicting on all counts. It is a pity that
Gypsy slave laborers (some of whom
Riefenstahl did not live long enough to
were later sent to the death camps) as
read his final verdict:
extras in a drama financed personally
"The 'horror of history' in which her
by Hitler. After four years in a French
apologists thought her 'imprisoned'
detention center, she embarked on
was a narrative of her own making
what would become a life-long mis-
about which she remained nostalgic
sion, furiously attempting to distance
and unrepentant. It was richly reward-
herself from the man and regime
ed and free of any compulsion save
she had so successfully idolized, and
eventually convincing some critics and personal ambition.
She did not suffer from it but profit-
other gullible aesthetes of her inno-
ed, and to suggest otherwise — as she
cence.
often did — is an insult to the millions
She also attempted to make films in
who died at the hands of a regime she
post-war Germany but without suc-
took pride in glorifying, using and
cess. No one would give "Hitler's film-
enabling." I I
maker" funding.

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