LENI RIEFENSTAHL was born in Berlin in 1902. She studied painting and started her artistic career as a dancer. She became already so famous after her first dance hat Max Reinhardt engaged her for the »Deutsches Theater«.

She became world-renowned as an actress in the films »Der heilige Berg« (1926), »Der große Sprung« (1927), »Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü« (1929), »Stürme über dem Mont Blanc« (1930), »Der weiße Rausch« (1931), »Das Blaue Licht« (1932) and «SOS Eisberg» (1933).

[img]http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/images/bio/4.jpg[/img]

Her greatest success she made with the documentary film »Triumph des Willens« named after the Reich Party Congress 1934 in Nuremberg which got the highest awards: The gold medal in Venice in 1935 and the gold medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937. However, at the end of the war this film destroyed Leni Riefenstahl's career, for now it had no longer been recognized as a piece of art but been condemned as a National Socialist propaganda film. Her world-famous film about the Olympic games made the same experience.

[img]http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/filmnotes/images/triumph5.jpg[/img]

That film included two parts, part I »Fest der Völker« and part 2 »Fest der Schönheit« , and did also get the highest awards: the gold medal in Paris in 1937, the first price in Venice as the world's best film in 1938, the Olympic Award by the IOC in 1939, and in 1956 it had been classified as one of the world's best ten films.

[img]http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/images/bio/23.jpg[/img]

Today, Leni Riefenstahl celebrates her 100th birthdays. The Old Lady is alive and well in her home at the Starnberger See south of Munich and still owns a movie and photography studio in Munich.

LR is an interesting person... especially her interactions with Adolph.  Those who have read of her life, what do you think?  Films aside, was she an innocent artist or Nazi propagandist?  

[beer]

Triumph of The Will sent a stunningly beautiful and scary message to the world.  Too bad the civilized world didn't catch on.

The scene where the new members of the Heer swear their allegiance to the Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler is especially telling...and frightening.  Where once the members of the Heer or Army, a part of the Wermacht or armed forces overall, swore their undying allegiance to the state, now they swore to one man.  That procedure is exactly like that of the late Roman Republic under Gaius Marius.  The results were essentially the same also.  The military then becomes a tool of the general instead of the protector of the state.

Amazing that a country as great as Germany...so rich in her history full of great men like Luther, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Handel, Benz, Humboldt, Kant, Diesel, Koch, Schweitzer, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel and Albert Einstein, with everything they gave the world...would also bring us Nietzsche, Bismark, and Hitler and his cronies.  The Holocaust instead of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

I would like to meet her one day and ask her about the loony ass hole she once worked for...Herr Hitler.  Too bad he offed himself...it would have been nice to hang the prick.  Too bad we didn't hang more of them after the war...especially the SS truppen.

[b]Fucking Nazis.[/b]  [50]

An absolutley AMAZING artist.

You have got to be kidding.  A talented filmmaker, sure.  However, her disingenuous distancing herself from the Nazi regime doesn’t ring true.  In my opinion, she should have been prosecuted with the rest of this scum as should anybody who used their artistic talents to further the Nazi cause.  I think this old bag has gathered a troop of admirers only because she is a woman and once was regarded as beautiful and glamorous.  

Ask a WWII vet how he regards the people like this who crafted Nazi propaganda and inspired the youth of Germany to burn down Europe.  

Go down to the local synagogue and find an elderly person with a number tattooed on their arm how they enjoyed the results of LR’s glorification of the Nazi regime and its goals.

My old man spent several years in Uncle Sam's army in WWII trying to erase this kind of German from the earth and managed to bag a couple of them.  If he was still around, he'd would spit on this 100 year old piece of shit.  I feel the same way.

Happy Birthday Leni Riefenstahl? Fuck her.  I hope she doesn’t make it to 101.

She was a brilliant propagandist.
Better than even the Jews of the modern day American media.

I agree with you on one part, though.
She was a Nazi, no doubt.
Still.
Trying to negate the accomplishments because of the accomplisher, well, that's gay.
There are people who would disagree with a Nazi if he said the sky is blue, not because of what he says is invalid, but because of who is saying it.
This shows a very weak mind.

I support Leni Riefenstahl independantly as a Nazi, and independantly as a filmmaker.
One makes no difference to the other in my mind.

“She was a brilliant propagandist.  Better than even the Jews of the modern day American media.”

Ah, yes, the famous McUzi is back, he who uses the nice Israeli first name as part of his AR15.com handle.

”Trying to negate the accomplishments because of the accomplisher, well, that's gay.”

Leaving aside you choice of words, I would say Riefenstahl was very accomplished and I hardly mean to denigrate her accomplishments.  No doubt she intended to accomplish the glorification of the Nazi regime.  No doubt she intended to accomplish the glorification of the head of the Nazi party, Adolph Hitler.  No, no, her accomplishments were manifold.  She was brilliant, no question.

Brilliant, that is, in the service of evil.  Brilliant in the service of a power that cost the lives of thousands of Americans, let alone the other millions of Jews, non Jews, men, women, and children and everyone else who didn’t fit their idea of the Aryan ideal.

“There are people who would disagree with a Nazi if he said the sky is blue, not because of what he says is invalid, but because of who is saying it.
This shows a very weak mind.”

I disagree.  To equate the work of your geriatric fascist friend Leni with the simple blue sky statement is stupid and simplistic.  On the other hand, to follow slavishly the work of the talented in the service of evil shows a bent, sick, and yes, weak little mind, easily impressed, easily lead.  

I don’t know you, but you sound like just the type of little man, a little frustrated man, who would jump on the bandwagon of some neo-fascist group in this country, get everyone straightened out, that sort of thing.  Get out the old Nazi playbook, fire up “Triumph of the Will” to get in the mood, oil up the guns, break out the armbands.

”I support Leni Riefenstahl independantly as a Nazi, and independantly as a filmmaker.
One makes no difference to the other in my mind.”

Ok, pal, it is obvious from this statement that your proclivities are only going to make this exchange fruitless.  I will say this in conclusion, crude though it be:

Fuck Leni Riefenstahl, fuck anyone who could possibly support Nazis and the Nazi philosophy.  I hope that old bag is carted off to hell very soon.

And you, well, I just feel sorry for you, McUzi.  You're pathetic.

I believe one of the Mods here met Leni.......maybe ARLady ???

Yup...not much doubt about that...but a bit too cozy with Adolph for my taste.

Then again...I guess that was one good way of staying alive.