Triumph des Willens

The other night I watched the DVD of the German-made documentary on Leni Riefenstahl, “Die Macht der Bilder”. I had seen the English version, entitled “The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl”, some years ago on TV and recalled having found it to be fascinating and repellant. This time was no different. Made in 1993 when Riefenstahl was 90 years old its an extraordinary look into the inner workings of this complicated film maker, most famous (infamous) for directing what is generally considered to be the greatest propaganda film ever made, “Triumph des Willens”, (“Triumph of the Will”). “Triumph des Willens” is the official “documentary” record of the 1934 NSDAP Reichsparteitag assembly in Nuremberg and Hitler specifically requested Riefenstahl to make this film. She had shot some footage at the 1933 Reichsparteitag as well but, as the makers of “Die Macht der Bilder” point out, at that point in time Riefenstahl had not figured out exactly how to make this kind of picture and the Nazis had not yet learned how to “march like Nazis”. By September, 1934, both had learned how to get their respective jobs done.

The evening before I had watched the DVD of “Triumph des Willens” start to finish for the first time, although I have seen clips of it on TV and at the documenation center in Nuremberg. It is really something to see although the lengthy footage of marching columns of Nazi groups (SA, SS, Deutsche Arbeitsfront, Hitlerjugend, etc.) becomes numbing and brutal after a bit. One aspect that was new for me this time was that I could, for the most part, understand the speeches being given by Hitler, Hess, Goebbels and the other Nazi bigwigs. My comprehension of their German varied quite a bit but I found, for example, that in the beginning of a Hitler speech, I could understand almost everything he said. Then as he built the level of excitement and began to speak faster and louder, more and more of the words dropped out for me. I also think my difficulty with his accent increased as he became more agitated at the climax of his speeches. I was very creeped out by being able to understand the Führer in his Muttersprache. I had heard parts of these speeches in documentaries before with either English subtitles or dubbing but it was worse to hear and comprehend the German. As Riefenstahl points out in “Macht der Bilder”, Hitler (and the other speakers) at the 1934 Nuremberg rally do not say much (or anything) about Nazi anti-Semitic and racial ideologies and do, in fact, as Riefenstahl claims, speak mostly about jobs for German workers and peace (albeit peace through strength, unity, and obedience to the party). Knowing what we know about Nazis, however, what one sees and hears at Nuremberg is horrible enough. Hess shouting that “Hitler is the party, the party is Hitler, Hitler is Germany!” and so on.

One other thing about the Riefenstahl documentary I would like to comment on. The director shot many scenes and conducted interviews with Riefenstahl at the editing table she used to edit “Triumph des Willens”. Riefenstahl would show clips of her film and comment, mostly on the technical aspects of film making, her “Kunst”, not on her or Nazi ideology or politics. In one very telling moment, she shows a scene she particularly loved, tells us to watch, and her eyes light up with what can only be described as maniacal glee, joy, triumph. It was totally creepy. Riefenstahl (who died I believe in about 2002 or 2003 at the age of 102) would say, I think, that she was delighted with the technical achievement evidenced in that scene, but it looked to me and, I suspect to the director of “Macht…” that there was more to it than that. Riefenstahl insists throughout “Macht…” that she was not a Nazi, never a Party member, hated and was hated by Goebbels (his now published diaries suggest otherwise) and in the very last scene, comments that she never hated Jews and that no anti-Semitic comment had ever passed her lips.

Riefenstahl was not permitted to work after the war, the Allied authorities considered her a Nazi fellow-traveler, but after about 20 years she embarked on film-making again in Africa, where she lived and worked with the Nuba tribe. In her last film projects, which she conducted in her nineties, Riefenstahl learned to scuba dive and filmed documentaries of undersea life. A Nazi Jacques Costeau? Hard to say and now we will probably never really know.