World war 2
Nazi Germany
Propaganda

The dancer, actress, director and photographer Helene “Leni” Riefenstahl, who died at the age of 101 in 2003, is a controversial character, largely because of the many propaganda movies she produced for the Nazis. So when it was recently announced that her estate would be handed over to a Berlin photography museum, historians of the period hoped to find some clarification about the extent of her involvement with the Nazi regime.

Her contributions to film history are undeniable. Many techniques that are now seen as common in sports reporting were introduced and championed by her Olympia movies – such as cameras on dollies to follow the athletes on the track or underwater cameras in the swimming and diving competitions to give a perspective to viewers that even spectators in the stadium wouldn’t get.

So maybe Leni Riefenstahl is such a controversial figure because she is both a feminist, and a Nazi, icon.

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