2 new bios on Leni Riefenstahl

Sorry, while her stuff is stylish and good, she was a Nazi and I'm simply not interested. But thanks for the information.

Cheers,
Alex
 
I'm reading "Leni" by Steven Bach right now. She was a kind of monster, but what she really reminds me of is one of the Hollywood types (like, say, Madonna or Brittany) who are so consumed by themselves that they really can't see past what *they* want, and what *they're* doing. They have talent, but it's not a social talent, it's more like a technical talent. To Riefenstahl, Hitler was just another guy, like a movie producer, who gave her a lot of attention and a certain amount of power, and if there were millions of people being killed somewhere, well, that was somebody else's problem. She didn't really try to establish any kind of "innocence" until it was necessary for her public image. She was also a consummate liar.

All of that aside, she was talented, and did have a certain amount of physical courage. It's possible that the war and the death camps never much attracted her attention because it wasn't about *her.*

JC
 
I think John hit the nail on the head. I doubt she was a Nazi in the sense of actually believing in the ideology (though I'm happy to be corrected in this). Rather, for her it was a "good gig" -- she got the access and prestige and attention she craved. She was more of an opportunist than anything else. I think of Herbert von Karajan and Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, to name two prominent musicians, as falling into the same category.
 
2 new bios on Leni Riefenstahl

rxmd said:
"This article is available exclusively for TimesSelect subscribers until it is made available to the public."

Philipp
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The New York Times just delivers the paper every day [in a blue-plastic sleeve] to my doorstep -- or more likely on the grass near the dog doo -- for about a dollar a day and as long as I give credit to The Times I believe they like all the publicity it can get and can probably use it...

As for those of us who don't agree with the Nazis, including The Times, I'm just passing the information along.

It just seems unusual that after so many years and lots of stuff already on the record about Riefenstahl that two authors -- and two leading publishers -- deem a bio of enough interest to publish two more books...at $30usd each.

Books on Hitler are still available in bookstores around the world , along with others on most leading Nazi figures...

I once asked a serious music critic about Karajan and Karajan's Nazi sympathies and got the feeling that although the critic readily acknowledged that Karajan was a Nazi, he did not seem interested in discussing the subject...
 
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There is an interesting article in last week's New Yorker about Leni Riefenstahl. As others have stated above, she played the Nazi card when it suited her, and once the 3rd Reich was history disavowed it when it suited her.
 
Once the Nazis lost, Leni Riefenstahl and her defenders tried to argue that artistic genius trumps politics.
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She is one of the most interesting figures in the history of filmmaking and a true pioneer, but boy could she rationalize!

Edward de Bono wrote of something called "the intelligence trap"

http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/blog/2005/12/05/edward-de-bono-intelligence-trap

. . . in which he explains that the greater the intelligence, often the poorer the thinking as they rationalize their situation despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I think Riefenstahl is a classic example of this. And I think she is a true artistic genius whose work deserves study and recognition IN THE CONTEXT of reality!

BTW, watch the 3+ hour documentary "The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl" for a good overview of the whole situation.

I think artists should be acquainted with her work and the controversy which surrounds her still some 70+ years after the fact.

Thanks for the link.
 
Same with Scientists, who asks what Werner v. Braun did up to 1945?
 
I tend to disagree with this Joe. Leni and almost all of the WW2 German population denied ever having to know what was going behind the Nazi propaganda. If no one knew about them, then how did the Nazi racial laws get enforced and the death camps operate? Who invaded Poland in 1939? Did the Russins actually fake the siege of Leningrad? Fortunately, for history, the Nazis were consummate documentors of everything they did. They left behind film, photographs, and documents. I believe Leni knew about everything she has ever denied. Whie she had talent, she was a self-consumed, egotistical opportunist. People like her, in her position, could have done so much in their time to bring attention to what was going on and help change the terrible outcome. By the fact that she helped to propel Nazi idealogy, makes her guilty of what she really believed in, no matter how much she or anyone else denies it.
 
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kbg32 said:
I tend to disagree with this Joe.

I believe Leni knew about everything she has ever denied.

By the fact that she helped to propel Nazi idealogy, makes her guilty of what she really believed in, no matter how much she or anyone else denies it.
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Actually Keith I think we agree. What I meant to say was she tried to rationalize her way out of culpability.

And re-reading my post I can see that I didn't communicate that as well as I could have.
 
kbg32 said:
I tend to disagree with this Joe. Leni and almost all of the WW2 German population denied ever having to know what was going behind the Nazi propaganda. If no one knew about them, then how did the Nazi racial laws get enforced and the death camps operate? Who invaded Poland in 1939? Did the Russins actually fake the siege of Leningrad? Fortunately, for history, the Nazis were consummate documentors of everything they did. They left behind film, photographs, and documents. I believe Leni knew about everything she has ever denied. Whie she had talent, she was a self-consumed, egotistical opportunist. People like her, in her position, could have done so much in their time to bring attention to what was going on and help change the terrible outcome. By the fact that she helped to propel Nazi idealogy, makes her guilty of what she really believed in, no matter how much she or anyone else denies it.
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Yep, exactly.

There's a good documentary that is essentially an extended interview with Hitler's secretary and by the end of it she comes to the realization that there were people insided Germanywho tried to fight Hitler (Sophie Scholl comes to mind). And for anyone who buys the argument that the general population didn't know, please pick up Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners".


Alex
 
KoNickon said:
I think John hit the nail on the head. I doubt she was a Nazi in the sense of actually believing in the ideology (though I'm happy to be corrected in this). Rather, for her it was a "good gig" -- she got the access and prestige and attention she craved. She was more of an opportunist than anything else. I think of Herbert von Karajan and Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, to name two prominent musicians, as falling into the same category.
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How many times have we heard quotes from Nazi death camp guards, "I was just taking orders. I was just doing my duty." Sorry just being into "oneself" does not qualify as an excuse IMHO for an active role in the Nazi machine.
 
kshapero said:
How many times have we heard quotes from Nazi death camp guards, "I was just taking orders. I was just doing my duty." Sorry just being into "oneself" does not qualify as an excuse IMHO for an active role in the Nazi machine.
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But surely no-one here has suggested that it was. Yet such "explanations" do have value, in demonstrating the rationalisations which enable one to overcome conscience, morality and the apparently innate ability to empathise - to choose a path of active evil. To understand this is in no sense to condone such a choice - rather the opposite - but to ignore it is to lay oneself yet more open to exactly the same errors. In my view this only increases the need to study Riefenstahl and similar artists, scientists and thinkers. Evil did not begin and end at the borders of the Third Reich.

All the best, Ian
 
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I don't think one can delete Leni Riefenstahl's talent just because she was a part of one of the darkest organization in the history.

Von Karajan was also in the NSDAP but then married a jewish lady.

On the premier of Das Meiostersinger Wagner chose a jewish conductor(and he was a raging antisemite).

The firm that invented aspirin also did some experimenting on war prisoners, and Farber made Zyclon B(with some other firms).

life is full of contradictions.

I say this as both a jew and an Israeli.
 
If the stew is tasty to you so be it. Too me it is forever foul. Interesting book called "Tainted Greatness" talks about men and women who became great in their fields but were inherently evil. Life's great dilemnas.
 
No doubt Leni was a very good film director and her African photos are interesting as well. She had a very good visual talent. On the other hand the most important thing what she has done: the best propaganda for the Nazis...

My personal verdict: she was guilty and more guilty than any other ordinary member of the NSDAP. She was an important part of the system.
On the other hand we need to know more about this era, the mechanism of it and also about the heroes (yes, we can say heroes: Sophie Scholl and her friends and others).
 
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