THE
ACCUSED
Austria was the last country to be liberated from National Socialism. The advance of the western Allies did not begin there until late April 1945. In Innsbruck, a surprisingly enthusiastic reception awaited the Americans: the streets were decorated in red, white, and blue, and the masses hailed their arrival. Leni Riefenstahl was on the run at this time. At some point in the previous few weeks, she had realized that things were not looking good. Although she continued to work on Lowlands around the clock, she was finding it more and more difficult to retreat into the world of art.
Albert Speer had taken Riefenstahl’s mother along from Berlin on one of his trips to Obersalzberg, a Bavarian mountain retreat for the Nazi top brass. Bertha Riefenstahl had been living with her daughter since February. Wilma Schaub, the wife of Hitler’s oldest adjutant, SS-Obergruppenführer Julius Schaub, had also fled to Kitzbühel. She had a direct telephone line to the Reich chancellery, and supplied Riefenstahl with food, medicine, and news. There were reports of superweapons, damage from bombs, and the punishments awaiting them if the Allies were actually to win. Frau Schaub had arranged for the original negatives of the party rally films to be brought to safety with a car coming from the “Brown House” (national headquarters of the National Socialist Party) in Munich to Bolzano.1 When the report of the capitulation of Hamburg leaked out, it was said that Hitler and Goebbels had committed suicide. Swastika flags and Hitler portraits had vanished. Riefenstahl made a quick exit and headed to Mayrhofen, a small village in Tyrol.
Confusion reigned in Tyrol. The German soldiers who had been defeated on the Italian front were trying to get to Germany, and the Italian forced laborers were rushing back home. No one cared about Riefenstahl. She took a room in a small hotel in the village, and it was there that she learned about the death of Hitler. “What we had been expecting for a long time had finally come to pass. I cannot describe what I felt at that moment. A chaos of emotions raged in me—I threw myself on my bed and wept throughout the night.”2 She was crying only for herself. Without her Führer, she would not be able to proceed with the projects she had described to Speer the previous year. Her ability to run things her way had come to an end.
Her depiction of the postwar era, which was unvarying over the course of decades, reveals Riefenstahl’s shocking degree of egomania. Right down to the end of her long life, she never tired of claiming that she had been the victim of a grave injustice.3 Since no one in Mayrhofen was willing to help her out, she started to make her way back to her mother, and she and other civilians were arrested by American soldiers and brought to a prisoners’ camp. Because the camp was poorly guarded, she was able to escape, only to be recaptured. This pattern of capture and escape occurred a total of three times. Riefenstahl ignored the fact that arrests and identity checks of minions of the National Socialist regime were a routine matter at this time. She regarded her “captivities” as a personal affront.
Once she arrived in Seebichl, she found that her house had been seized by the Americans. Still, the American officer who met her at the door was courteous, and he even spoke German.4 The Americans were looking for what was left of Hitler and his inner circle. Riefenstahl was questioned by Captain Wallenberg and Captain Langendorf, who had trouble reconciling their image of the plucky, attractive actress of the mountain films with the ailing, despondent woman sitting across from them. Riefenstahl’s greatest source of anguish was that she could not continue her work on Lowlands. She figured that the project had come to a halt, as had everything in Germany. Then she affirmed that she had never curried favor with high-ranking National Socialists. After all, she had already been somebody before 1933. Riefenstahl, who was regularly handed one hundred thousand reichsmarks from the Goebbels ministry, claimed that if she, like many other colleagues, had only been working for the money, she could have been a millionaire by now. She trumpeted her artistic independence: “Had I ever had the impression that my freedom as creative artist would be limited, I would have gone abroad. . . . This I have kept until the last day of my work.” Many party members made life difficult for her, and she even thought they were out to kill her. She hated Goebbels, and she now described Bormann as “such a primitive man.” Riefenstahl recommended that those who had once been in Hitler’s inner circle commit suicide. “And I cannot grasp how any of the people who shared Hitler’s political ideas have the courage to continue living. I would have committed suicide, had I felt that I shared the responsibility for these crimes.” By contrast, she was patting herself on the back for having known Jews (von Sternberg) and supported them (Ernst Jäger’s wife). She had been terribly upset about the pogroms in November 1938, and was only able to calm down when she was assured that the responsible parties would be punished. The American officers did not regard her as a fanatical National Socialist, and found her open and sincere. Perhaps, they concluded, she truly did not know what had been going on in Hitler’s state. In their eyes, Riefenstahl’s moral corruption was a typical product of National Socialism. Hitler had held his protective hand over her and ensured that she could go on living undisturbed in her dream world. “If her statements are sincere, she has never grasped, and still does not grasp, the fact that she, by dedicating her life to art, has given expression to a gruesome regime and contributed to its glorification.”5
Riefenstahl’s husband and mother were now staying at Hörlahof, then in possession of the Ribbentrop family. She was also brought there by the American soldiers. But the joy of their reunion was short-lived, because Riefenstahl was again arrested and interrogated. She was shown photographs of concentration camps, and she had to put up with painful questions. Because she had been neither a member of the party nor Hitler’s lover, she did not understand what was wanted of her. Then, on June 3, she was released, surprisingly quickly. The Americans gave her a document stating that there were no charges against her. Riefenstahl went back to Kitzbühel and assumed that the issues about her dealings with Hitler had been resolved. She returned to her daily routine and planned to finish up her work on Lowlands. It did not even occur to her that people might not want to see her films anymore. Riefenstahl did not feel compelled to reflect or make a fresh start. She merely noted that the end of the war had disrupted her work, but she was unfazed, all set to pick up where she had left off. In early May the Allies negotiated a change in the occupying power in North Tyrol. The French, who were intent on being considered a great power, insisted on an active role in implementing peace and rebuilding Europe. The removal of the American troops in North Tyrol and Vorarlberg began on July 5 and was completed five days later. This changeover had repercussions for Riefenstahl’s life. The Americans regarded the Austrians just like the Germans, as a defeated nation. The French, by contrast, described themselves as an occupying power in a friendly country, which is why they had plaques mounted at the national border that read Ici L’Autriche, pays ami. The French policy can be summarized with three d’s: disannexation, detoxification, and democratization. Austria would be separated from Germany (désannexion), National Socialist propaganda would be removed (désintoxication), and the Austrians would be provided democratic political and cultural ideas (démocratisation). It is easy to see that Riefenstahl and her art were not compatible with this endeavor. Her clearance certificate that had been issued by the Americans was declared invalid because the French rejected the denazification process conducted by the Americans on the grounds that it had been too perfunctory and superficial. She was arrested and interrogated all over again, this time by the French military, and was ordered to leave Tyrol. It should be noted that this order was not some malicious act directed at her personally. The “Ostmark” no longer existed; all “ethnic Germans” were now considered foreigners and had to leave the country as quickly as possible.6 According to her descriptions, she was subjected to gratuitous harassment by the French. After a stay in the hospital of the Innsbruck Women’s Prison, she claimed to have been so demoralized that she wanted to die. Eventually
her expulsion was withdrawn, and she was allowed to return to Seebichl House.
There she had a visit from Budd Schulberg. Schulberg was part of the old Hollywood upper crust. His father, B. P. Schulberg, had been the production chief of Paramount Pictures; Budd grew up with silent-film stars and knew quite a lot about the business. He had been one of the initiators of a boycott against Riefenstahl when she visited Hollywood in 1938. After the end of World War II, he was looking around Europe for movies and movie stills that could be of use in the war-crimes trials in Nuremberg on behalf of the American government. Triumph of the Will had already been confiscated and put to good use: “Its first use there was as a psychological experiment to try to break through Hess’s ‘amnesia.’ ”7 Victory of Faith and Day of Freedom, which they wanted to show in Nuremberg to serve as a “memory refresher,” still needed to be located. Schulberg went in search of Leni Riefenstahl, hoping to find these films. Reading the secret service files in Salzburg, he saw a reference to her last known whereabouts: “Last seen in Salzburg with Hitler’s entourage early ’43.” He was referred to a Mr. Kahn, a member of the Rainbow Division, which had occupied the area around Salzburg. Kahn had been the first to interrogate Riefenstahl. He reported that she was able to supply a great deal of information about Hitler and explained that he would have liked to keep her incarcerated even longer. Because she was a VIP, however, she was turned over to the Seventh Army, which soon classified her as denazified and released her. Schulberg’s quest then led him to Kitzbühel, where he asked the French officer in command where he might find her. Major Guyonnet did not think much of Madame Riefenstahl, and called her “a third-rate movie actress.” Although he had interrogated her, he did not come away with much information and sent her back home.
Eventually Schulberg made his way to Seebichl House, an impressively large, beautiful building with a view of the snowcapped peaks of the Kitzbühel Alps. A short, nervous, exaggeratedly polite man with a stiff smile opened the door. This man was Peter Jacob, Riefenstahl’s husband. He assured Schulberg that Riefenstahl was delighted at the prospect of his visit and asked him to come into the study. Schulberg found himself in a luxurious, oak-paneled room with a great many bookcases. He noticed quite a few classics of German literature, biographies of artists, film books, and leather-bound screenplays of Riefenstahl’s movies, with the exception of Victory of Faith, Triumph of the Will, and Day of Freedom. She kept him waiting for half an hour, then made an appearance. Riefenstahl was wearing yellow, velvety corduroy slacks and a golden-brown leather jacket, which went perfectly with her tanned face. “She held out her hand to me, prima-donna fashion, and smiled grandly. She reminded me of I don’t know how many actresses of her age I had met before, fading beauties who try to compensate in grooming, make-up and animation for what they begin to lack in physical appeal.” He noticed how nervous she was. She asked him why he wanted to speak to her, and hastily pulled a piece of paper out of her pants pocket and held it up to him. Here, she said, take a look for yourself. She had been cleared, and was above reproach. When he replied that he was not from the Counter Intelligence Corps, but from the National Film Archives, and was looking for her films, her face relaxed. Riefenstahl took his hand and pressed it with gratitude. She sent her husband to the kitchen to have the cook bring them tea and cake. She was overjoyed to learn that someone had come to her from Berlin on account of her films. She happily repeated the movie titles as he listed them, but when he got to Triumph of the Will, she clammed up. She pulled her hand away, and her eyes, which had looked at him warmly until then, took on a wary aspect. It was only when he assured her that Triumph of the Will was a great documentary film that she calmed down again. “ ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘That’s the way I meant it. Not propaganda, but—well, after all, a party congress in Nuremberg was something important happening, whether you were for it or not.’ ” Then she sent her husband off to get the certificate of the prize she had been awarded by the French government in 1937 for Triumph of the Will. When Schulberg asked about the two other films of party rallies, she had no desire to elaborate. Victory of Faith was short and uninteresting, she stated, and Day of Freedom an insignificant and pathetic effort, a mere concession to the Wehrmacht. She was more interested in discussing the certificate from Paris that Jacob brought her. “In Paris I was given an ovation. They treated me marvelously in London too. That’s the way art should be—international.” Schulberg tried to get her to talk about Hitler and his crimes. She actually claimed that Hitler had a very artistic and sensitive nature, but must have had a demon hidden inside him that no one could see. Her relationship with him was purely artistic. She had not heard a thing about the concentration camps until the Americans interrogated her. Then she turned to the subject of Goebbels, and claimed that she had feared that he would have her brought to a concentration camp. “ ‘But why should you be afraid of concentration camps?’ I said. ‘After all, you hadn’t heard of them.’ ‘Oh, I knew there were some,’ Leni said. ‘But I had no idea what they were really like, how terrible they were.’ ” After she had again ordered tea from her husband, she asked in a saccharine tone if he knew whether her name was on the black list. He did not know, but he assumed so. Then she asked whether he believed that her new, absolutely unpolitical film was likely to be boycotted in America. Schulberg said yes, and she confessed to him that she no longer knew what to do. Then why not try her new movie in Germany? “ ‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘I was never a Nazi, but the concentration-camp Germans will be in power.’ ” When he left, she walked him out to the front of the house. Once again, she tried to persuade him to intercede on her behalf. When Schulberg replied that he would not be able to do anything for her, any last trace of friendliness vanished for a moment. Then she gave him an odd smile, the kind that made him wonder whether she had used this same smile when requesting a favor from Hitler. She asked Schulberg for a can of gas, but he replied that it was against the rules for him to do so. After this second rebuff, her face took on a hard, self-pitying aspect. “As I drove down the hill,” Schulberg wrote at the conclusion of his essay, “I saw her walking slowly back into her big house, back to her well-trained Mr. Jacob, her well-trained servants, and the stubborn ghosts of the third Reich who insisted on being part of the family.”8
In this piece, Schulberg captured Riefenstahl’s forlornness and factitiousness. She loved to speak about her successes as a great artist, and still dreamed of glitzy premieres and bursts of applause. Twenty-six years after Schulberg’s visit, she would still go into a rage if his name came up. “No, no, don’t mention Schulberg. Keine [sic] Mensch—Schwein!”9 In 1971, she told her interviewer, Gordon Hitchens, that if she had been free and not so poor, she would have sued Schulberg. She had an odd concept of the law. What could she possibly sue him for? Right down to the end of her very long life, Riefenstahl would balk at the idea that she was in no position to play the injured party and adjudge right and wrong. The world lay in ruins, and she still thought she had every right to be the center of attention.
For Janet Flanner, two sights in Germany provided dramatic proof that the Allies had won the war. One was the devastation evident in any German city, and the other was “the small tableau of the Nazi-filled prisoners’ box, beneath the floodlights, in the war-crimes courtroom in Nuremberg.”10 Riefenstahl, who knew most of the defendants personally, had only the vaguest notion of the proceedings. She was so caught up in thoughts of what would happen to her personally that she was “almost like a sleepwalker” and incapable of making out the realities of the courtroom.11 She would not admit to herself that she—like these men in the dock in Nuremberg—was one of the losers. Riefenstahl regarded the end of National Socialism as the beginning of tyranny. On April 15, 1946, she was ordered to leave Austria.12 Her husband, her mother, and three members of her crew went with her. Every Reichsdeutscher—she had not been singled out, contrary to her description of the incident—was allowed to carry along only 30 kilos of luggage in this deportation.13 They were
free to move to a German city in the French zone. Riefenstahl chose Freiburg, where she was hoping for help from Dr. Fanck, but he wanted nothing to do with her.
They eventually found a place to stay in the small town of Breisach, and then in the Black Forest village of Königsfeld. Her plans for a comeback—she already had a young woman at her side whom she intended to train as a film editor—were thwarted by the confiscation of her bank assets and her film equipment, including the footage itself.
Riefenstahl’s marriage was in bad shape as well. Jacob, who could no longer escape to the battlefield, had to stay with her. He was a soldier whose war had been lost. Riefenstahl was plagued by her usual stomach ailments and craved her fame, or at least the prospect of attaining it. The two of them often fought. The thought that she might never be able to shoot a film again was devastating. She had actually assumed that the French would consider themselves lucky to have her in their zone. She must have wondered why they were not making her any movie offers, or bringing her to Paris to exchange ideas with the top French filmmakers.
She was ill-tempered, and living in close quarters with her husband and mother only made matters worse. Apart from the years she spent with Schneeberger, Riefenstahl had never lived with a man for long. The way she saw it, the victors in the war were to blame for the catastrophic state of her husband and her marriage: “My illness and the repeated arrests put a strain on him, especially since after almost five years of at the front, he deserved a better life after the war.”14 This can only mean that a German victory would have been the fair outcome. By the time a year had passed since the end of the war, Riefenstahl knew that she would have to gather all her strength to get back on her feet. She decided to separate from Jacob, who was constantly cheating on her. She would get along better without him. Riefenstahl reduced her family to a minimum: she lived with her mother, whose absolute admiration and support she could count on. Marriage, by contrast, consumed her energy and thus inhibited artistic development. Her divorce was finalized in the summer of 1947.
Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives Page 42