Abstract

A review of 'Leni Reifenstahl: a life' by Jurgen Trimborn, IB Tauris, 2009, 368 pp., ISBN 9781845116446
Few, if any, films in the cinema's first century are as critically overrated as those of'Hitler's favourite filmmaker',
Leni Riefenstahl. But one thing is incontrovertible, her court appearances were all masterpieces. She discovered, as one of Germany's most popular prewar film stars, that her charisma, beauty and acting ability could absolve her guilt as a leading Nazi henchwoman. Despite extensive evidence of this, the worst that happened to her at her four postwar de-Nazification hearings was to be declared a 'follower'. Thereafter she was ever on the alert, suing anybody who dared suggest her complicity in the crimes of the Third Reich.