Sally Stockhold

Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's Cineaste. Blood on her hands?

From “myselfportraits, ode to icons” Series
Hand-colored archival pigment print
Edition of 6 + 2 APs
Sally Stockhold © 2009

Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003) Known as “Hitler’s Cineaste”, Riefenstahl began her career as a German film actress who went on to direct a popular film “Das Blaue Litch” in 1932. Because of her high esthetic as an artist, in 1935 Hitler chose Riefenstahl to create a documentary glorifying the Third Reich. She produced “Triumph des Willens” considered one of the most stunning and technically ambitious propaganda films ever made. Riefenstahl followed with the equally spectacular film “Olympia”, a paean to the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin. After World War II, she spent a short time in prison for being a Nazi sympathizer. She was not a member of the Nazi Party, but she had socialized with Hitler and his inner circle and was a known anti-Semite. Leni never regained her reputation but continued to work in photography and spent the rest of her life denying culpability as a Nazi insider.

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