09/09/2003

The death has been announced of the German director Leni Riefenstahl, who made films for the Nazi regime during the first part of her career. The news of her death was published by the online version of the magazine, Bunte. Riefenstahl, who was born in Berlin and whose real name was Helen Berta Amalic, was aged 101. She died last night in her house in Poecking on the Starnbergersee lake, in Bavaria. She was the director of a documentary on the Berlin Olympics of 1936 (Olimpia) and of the film Triumph of the Will, a propaganda movie showing a Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1934. The Nuba, a photographic documentary about the Nuba tribe living in Sudan brought her work back to the attention of the critics after an absence of many years.

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Riefenstahl had frequently been criticised in Germany for her role as Hitler’s favourite director. But the director always denied being a Nazi supporter, and she expressed regret for accepting Hitler’s request to make a film about the Nazi party conference. She also vehemently denied rumours that she was the Fuhrer’s mistress. It was only on her 100th birthday last year that the Germany officially made a small attempt at reconciliation with the woman who is considered to be one of the country’s greatest directors.