Leni Riefenstahl

Vintage: Nazi Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl (1930s)

Vintage: Nazi Propaganda Film Director Leni Riefenstahl (1930s)

Leni Riefenstahl (1902 – 2003) was a German film director. Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker. Describing the experience in her memoir, Riefenstahl wrote, “I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the…
Vintage: Marlene Dietrich, Leni Riefenstahl and Anna May Wong at the Pierre Ball in Berlin, 1928

Vintage: Marlene Dietrich, Leni Riefenstahl and Anna May Wong at the Pierre Ball in Berlin, 1928

Two beautiful and ambitious Berliners, born just eight months apart—Marie Magdalene Dietrich, on December 27, 1901; Bertha Helene Amalie Riefenstahl, on August 22, 1902—both bound to shape the fantasies and touch the histories of their time. Two girls growing up amid the fear and chaos of the Great War, two artists committed to impossible ideals of physical beauty, two women…