50 See Martin Loiperdinger, “Riefenstahls Parteitagsfilme zwischen Bergfilm und Kriegswochenschau” Filmblatt 8, no. 21 (Winter/Spring 2003): 12–28.
51 “Regiesitzung mit Leni Riefenstahl. Kameradschaftsarbeit der besten Filmoperateure Deutschlands,” in Presseabteilung der Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, ed., Feuilletons für Triumph des Willens, BFAB.
52 See Siegfried Zelnhefer, Die Reichsparteitage der NSDAP in Nürnberg (Nuremberg: Nürnberger Presse Druckhaus, 2002).
53 Hamilton T. Burden, The Nuremberg Party Rallies: 1923–39 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967), p. 79.
54 A seat for the military exercises cost ten reichsmarks; a spot in the standing area during the roll call of the Reich labor service was only thirty pfennigs.
55 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 61. Speer recalled, “Given this background, it is understandable that the Nuremberg Opera House was almost empty in 1933 when Hitler entered the central box to hear Die Meistersinger. He reacted with intense vexation. Nothing, he said, was so insulting and so difficult for an artist as playing to an empty house. He ordered patrols sent out to bring the high party functionaries from their quarters, beer halls, and cafés to the opera house; but even so the seats could not be filled.” Ibid., p. 60.
56 “Regiesitzung mit Leni Riefenstahl. Kameradschaftsarbeit der besten Filmoperateure Deutschlands,” in Feuilletons für Triumph des Willens, Bundesarchiv Filmarchiv Berlin, BFAB 17345.
57 William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), p. 20: “Standing there in the early morning sunlight which sparkled on their shiny spades, fifty thousand of them, with the first thousand bared above the waist, suddenly made the German spectators go mad with joy when, without warning, they broke into a perfect goose-step. . . . Spontaneously they jumped up and shouted their applause. There was a ritual even for the Labour Service boys. They formed an immense Sprechchor—a chanting chorus—and with one voice intoned such words as these: ‘We want one leader! Nothing for us! Everything for Germany! Heil Hitler!’ ”
58 Martin Loiperdinger, “Riefenstahls Parteitagsfilme zwischen Bergfilm und Kriegswochenschau,” Filmblatt 8, no. 21 (Winter/Spring 2003): 12–28; this quotation is on p. 16.
59 For further details, see Yvonne Karow, Deutsches Opfer. Kultische Selbstauslöschung auf den Reichsparteitagen der NSDAP (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1994).
60 Christa Schroeder, Er war mein Chef. Aus dem Nachlass der Sekretärin von Adolf Hitler, ed. Anton Joachimsthaler (Munich: Langen Müller. 1985), p. 73.
61 Steven Bach, Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl (New York: Knopf, 2007), p. 137.
62 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 231.
63 Newspaper clipping, n.d., BFAB.
64 Carl Zuckmayer, Geheimreport, ed. Gunther Nickel and Johanna Schrön (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2002), pp. 93–94; this passage is on p. 93.
65 Telegram, Leni Riefenstahl to Adolf Hitler, May 1, 1935, BArch, R 43 II/388, sheet 151.
66 Stefanie Grote has traced the origins of this film and concludes that Riefenstahl was assigned the job of filming the entire party rally in order to enhance the party rally archives. Stefanie Grote, “ ‘Objekt’ Mensch. Körper als Ikon und Ideologem in den cineastischen Werken Leni Riefenstahls. Ästhetisierter Despotismus oder die Reziprozität von Auftragskunst und Politik im Dritten Reich.” Ph.D. dissertation, Viadrina European University, 2004.
67 The Steel Animal was planned as an advertisement for the Deutsche Bahn. However, jolly conductors and happy passengers are not the focus of the film; instead, it centers on hissing steam locomotives and glistening tracks. The film was rejected by the head office of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and was not used for advertising purposes.
68 Hans Ertl, Meine wilden dreissiger Jahre. Bergsteiger, Filmpionier, Weltenbummler (Munich: Herbig Verlag, 1982), p. 198.
69 Ibid., p. 205.
70 See David Culbert and Martin Loiperdinger, “Leni Riefenstahl’s Tag der Einheit, the 1935 Nazi Party Rally film,” in Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 12, no. 1 (1992): 3–40.
71 Völkischer Beobachter, no. 1, January 1, 1936.
72 William E. Dodd, Ambassador Dodd’s Diary: 1933–1938, ed. William E. Dodd, Jr., and Martha Dodd (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1941), p. 296; entry dated January 9, 1936.
73 Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler. Das Zeitalter der Verantwortungslosigkeit. Eine Biographie (Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1936), p. 357.
74 “At Garmisch-Partenkirchen last week, much too occupied to engage in her customary practice of skiing up and down the hill in a bathing suit to acquire a tan, she was even busier than usual, keeping an expert Nazi eye on winter sports for Führer Hitler and giving visitors to Germany a startling picture of what he thinks German girls should be.” “Sport: Games at Garmisch,” cover story in Time magazine, February 17, 1936, pp. 38–39.
75 British and American IOC members campaigned for a boycott of the Games in Berlin; see Reinhard Rürup, ed, 1936. Die Olympischen Spiele und der Nationalsozialismus. Eine Dokumentation (Berlin: Argon Verlag, 1996).
76 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated August 17, 1935, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 3/1, April 1934–February 1936 (Munich: De Gruyter Saur, 2005).
77 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated August 21, 1935, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 3/1.
78 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated October 5, 1935, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 3/1.
79 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated October 13, 1935, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 3/1.
80 “An example of Riefenstahl’s elaborate preparations is her selection of what kind of film to use. She experimented with every major film on the market, and after extensive tests, discovered that each had a characteristic quality that the others didn’t have. Agfa, she discovered, was best with people and faces; and the newly marketed Perutz film was best with outdoor shots and nature scenes. Rather than make any sacrifice to quality, Riefenstahl decided to use all three in Olympia.” David B. Hinton, The Films of Leni Riefenstahl (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1978), p. 68.
81 Leni Riefenstahl, “Der Olympia-Film” in Filmwelt, July 19, 1938, BFAB.
82 Quoted in Bach, Leni, p. 155; this article appeared in the New York Times on August 14, 1936.
83 Hans-Walther Betz, “Das Fest der Völker. Sachliche Betrachtung zum ersten Olympia-Film,” in Der Film, April 23, 1938, BFAB.
84 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 272.
85 Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again (New York: Scribner, 2011), pp. 530–31.
86 Riefenstahl’s production company carved out short films from the outtakes, and these were usually shown before the main feature. Their titles included Strength and Momentum (1940), The Leap (1940), White Water (1942), and The Greatest Earthly Joy on Horseback (1943).
87 All of these letters are in Paul Kohner’s estate, SdK NLA, Berlin.
88 “Leni and the Wolf. Interview with Leni Riefenstahl by Michel Delahaye,” in Cahiers du Cinéma 5 (1966): 49–55; this quotation is on p. 54.
89 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated November 6, 1936, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 4, March–November 1937 (Munich: De Gruyter Saur, 2000).
90 Dr. Paul Laven, “Neue Sprechkunst beim Olympia-Film. Der Sprecher als ‘Star,’ ” in Presseheft zum Olympia-Film, BFAB.
91 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated July 1, 1937, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, vol. 4.
92 Erich Maria Remarque, Das unbekannte Werk, vol. 5: Briefe und Tagebücher (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1998), p. 276.
93 This information draws on the following articles in the April 21, 1938, evening edition of the Berliner Illustrierte: “Der Führer bei der festlichen Welturaufführung des Olympia-Films im UFA-Palast am Zoo
”; “Das Heldenlied vom Sportkampf der Völker”; “Von Tschammer und Osten ausgezeichnet—Adolf Hitler dankt Leni Riefenstahl—Empfang bei Dr. Goebbels”; and on a report in Film-Kurier on April 21, 1938: “In Anwesenheit des Führers. Begeisterte Aufnahme des Olympia-Films. Zwei gewaltige Filmwerke vermitteln der ganzen Welt das Erlebnis der Olympischen Spiele 1936.”
94 Underwater shots of the kind Hans Ertl made for the Olympia film were unusual at that time. Ertl constructed his underwater camera on his own and tested it out in his bathtub at home. At the competitions, Guzzi Lantschner stood with his handheld camera on the high board and Ertl waited in the swimming pool. When the diver lifted off from the edge of the board, Ertl’s camera filmed him from the waterline. As the diver entered the water, Ertl’s camera did the same until the diver resurfaced right in front of the lens. In order not to be lifted above the surface, he wore sandals with lead soles and a belt with lead weights.
95 “Paris vom Olympiafilm begeistert,” in Lichtbild-Bühne, July 7, 1938, BFAB.
96 “Aus den Filmkunstwochen in Venedig. Beifallsstürme um den Olympiafilm,” in Völkischer Beobachter, August 28, 1938, BFAB.
97 Issue 1748 of the Illustrierter Film-Kurier, which was published in 1932, carried this listing for the film: “The Blue Light: A collaborative effort of Leni Riefenstahl, Béla Balász, Hans Schneeberger; producer: Leni Riefenstahl Studio of H. R. Sokal Film, Inc.” By issue 2797, published in 1938, the listing looked quite different: “Degeto is showing a Leni Riefenstahl Studio film, The Blue Light: A mountain legend written and filmed by LENI Riefenstahl; camera: Hans Schneeberger.” BFAB.
98 Quoted in Thomas Doherty, Hollywood and Hitler 1933–1939 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), p. 306.
99 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 345.
IV War (1939–1945)
The Amazon
1 Adolf Hitler quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Würzburg: R. Löwit, 1962), p. 1312f.
2 Nicolaus von Below, Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, wrote: “The Poles were not equipped for modern war. They had 36 infantry and two mountain divisions and one mountain, one motorized, and eleven cavalry brigades, but lacked armor and artillery. Against them the German Army ranged more than 50 divisions, including six panzer and four motorized—a clear superiority. The Polish Air Force was not an independent arm and its 900 aircraft, roughly half modern and half obsolescent, were distributed amongst Army units. The military leadership was good, and some groups fought on doggedly in ignorance of the overall situation.” Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant, trans. Geoffrey Brooks (London: Greenhill Books, 2001), p. 35.
3 BA-Militärchiv, Berlin, RW 4/185, sheets 1 and 2.
4 “Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, September 10, 1939, Betrifft: Film-Sondertrupp Riefenstahl,” Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv RW 4/185, sheets 1 and 2; this passage is on sheet 2.
5 Erich von Manstein, Verlorene Siege (Munich: Bernhard und Graefe, 1976), p. 43ff.
6 Ibid., p. 43.
7 Ilse Collignon described her sister-in-law’s appearance in very similar terms. Although her notes are generally quite unreliable, they seem accurate when recounting a visit she and her husband made to Leni Riefenstahl. “I suddenly noticed that she had disappeared, but by then she was already coming down the stairs, wearing a uniform, trousers, and boots, a leather belt around her slender waist, a narrow sash diagonally across her shoulder and torso. ‘Well?’ she said, and beamed at her brother. ‘What do you think of the Führer’s war correspondent for Poland?’ Heinz regarded her with a mixture of embarrassment and admiration. ‘And where are you toting your weapon?’ She laughed shrilly. ‘You dummy, I’ve got the camera; that’s my weapon!’ ” Ilse Collignon, “Liebe Leni. . . . ” Eine Riefenstahl erinnert sich (Munich: Langen Müller, 2003), p. 96.
8 Von Below, At Hitler’s Side, p. 36.
9 BA-Militärarchiv, Berlin, RH 20-10/ 2, AoK I, appendix to the war diary of General von Rundstedt, August 23–October 2, 1939.
10 Leni Riefenstahl, Memoiren (Munich: Albrecht Knaus, 1987), p. 350.
11 Ibid., p. 351.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Alexander B. Rossino, “Destructive Impulses: German Soldiers and the Conquest of Poland,” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11, no. 3 (Winter 1997): 351–64.
15 Von Manstein, Verlorene Siege, p. 44.
16 Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939–1945 (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1968), p. 36.
17 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 352.
18 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated June 21, 1939, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels.
19 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 215.
20 Leni Riefenstahl, “Why I Am Filming Penthesilea,” Film Culture 56/57 (Spring 1973): 194–215; this quotation is on p. 203.
21 Hermann Weigel, “Interview mit Leni Riefenstahl” in Filmkritik, no. 8 (August 1, 1972): 395–411; this quotation is on p. 407.
22 Leni Riefenstahl to Professor Doctor Minde-Pouet, August 4, 1939; quoted in Was für ein Kerl! Heinrich von Kleist im “Dritten Reich, Exhibition catalogue (Neuhardenberg: Stiftung Schloss Neuhardenberg, 2008), p. 63.
23 Leni Riefenstahl to Professor Doctor Minde-Pouet, August 7, 1939, quoted in ibid.
24 Riefenstahl, “Why I Am Filming Penthesilea,” p. 195.
25 Telegram from Leni Riefenstahl to Führer Headquarters, BDC.
26 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated December 16, 1942, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels.
27 Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 87.
28 Bernhard Minetti, Erinnerungen eines Schauspielers, ed. Günther Rühle (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1985), p. 151.
29 BA, Berlin, R 43/II 810b, sheets 81–83.
30 BA, Berlin, R 43/810b, sheet 93.
31 For example, in a 1966 interview she claimed: “For this romantic and harmless opera of the highlands, I was absolutely denied the support that would willingly have been granted me for the other films. In any case, everything went for the war.” “Leni and the Wolf. Interview with Leni Riefenstahl by Michel Delahaye,” in Cahiers du Cinéma 5 (1966): 49–55; this passage is on p. 54.
32 Joseph Goebbels, diary entry dated December 16, 1942, in Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels.
33 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 391.
34 “The Führer and Reich Chancellor wishes to have a film made about the new Reich chancellery, and Frau Leni Riefenstahl will be commissioned to make it. The overall production costs are now estimated to amount to 700,000 reichsmarks.” Memorandum from the inspector general for the construction of the Reich capital to the Reich minister and director of the Reich chancellery, dated May 11, 1940, BA, Berlin, R 43/389, sheet 13.
35 “I also had to make a film about the Reich chancellery, inside and out, and also to film the entire Atlantic Wall. All these films were photographically fine, as always, but nothing special from a cinematic standpoint. I had neither the talent nor the interest for these kinds of cultural films with lifeless objects.” Arnold Fanck, Er führte Regie mit Gletschern, Stürmen und Lawinen. Ein Filmpionier erzählt (Munich: Nymphenburger Verlag, 1973), p. 376.
36 Reimar Gilsenbach and Otto Rosenberg, “Riefenstahls Liste. Zum Gedenken an die ermordeten Komparsen” in Berliner Zeitung, February 17–18, 2001.
37 Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 361.
38 Ibid., p. 364.
39 Ilse Zielke to Albrecht Knaus, April 18, 1988. Filmarchiv Potsdam/Nachlass Willy Zielke.
40 His estate, which was saved by chance by a staff member of the Potsdam Film Archive, contains a green membership card of the Association of Victims of Euthanasia and Forced Sterilization Association, Detmold. As compensation for all claims relating to his sterilization, which took place in 1937, he received a lump sum of five tho
usand marks from the Federal Republic of Germany.
41 “Willy Zielke is not the only person I helped and who eventually disappointed me bitterly. But at least for Zielke, whose abilities have always fascinated me, whose Steel Animal I fought for with Goebbels, and whom I got out of the mental hospital by assuming personal responsibility for him, there is an excuse: his pitiful lot in life.” Riefenstahl, Memoiren, p. 283.
42 Ilse Zielke to Albrecht Knaus, April 18, 1988. Filmarchiv Potsdam/Nachlass Willy Zielke.
43 Ibid.
44 Helma Sanders-Brahms’s conjecture that Riefenstahl’s Lowlands represented a plea for tyrannicide is feminist hyperbole. She speculated that Riefenstahl was hoping for the end of the Nazi era and may have wanted to bring it about with this film. Helma Sanders-Brahms, “Tyrannenmord: Tiefland von Leni Riefenstahl,” in Norbert Grob, ed., Das Dunkle zwischen den Bildern: Essays, Porträts, Kritiken (Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992), pp. 245–51).
45 Leni Riefenstahl to Albert Speer, January 11, 1944, BDC.
46 The list of the company’s commissions includes a camp for foreigners known as Priesterweg (approx. 250,000 reichsmarks), a camp at Wilhelmshagen (450,000 reichsmarks), a Russian camp (3,500 reichsmarks), the Reich chancellery (approx. 12,000 reichsmarks), and various bunkers (approx. 30,000).
47 Letter from Leni Riefenstahl to Albert Speer, May 12, 1944, BDC.
The Soldier
1 Franklin D. Roosevelt quoted in David Fromkin, In the Time of the Americans: FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Marshall, MacArthur: The Generation That Changed America’s Role in the World (New York: Knopf, 1995), p. 383.
2 Josefine von Losch to Marlene Dietrich, March 4, 1940, MDCB.
3 Unidentified newspaper clipping, “Marlene Dietrich Is Star Who Has Beauty and Brains,” MDCB.
4 Red Cross, civilian message from Maria Magdalena Sieber to Josefine von Losch, March 30, 1943, MDCB.
5 Diary entry dated October 9, 1942, Beverly Hills, in Erich Maria Remarque, Das unbekannte Werk, vol. 5: Briefe und Tagebücher (Cologne: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1998), p. 372.
Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Hollywood, Berlin, and a Century in Two Lives Page 57