THE MISUNDERSTOOD GENIUS

As a young girl, Leni Riefenstahl was a gorgeous dancer, so dominating on a stage that nobody could take their eyes off of her. When she got older she was a major movie star in Europe who worked for the silent film genius, Max Plank, starring in the financial blockbuster "mountain films," which were sort of Westerns set in the Alps where the villians were the weather and the brutally beautiful mountains. She went straight from beautiful and sexy movie star to the genius propagandist for the Nazi Party and Adolph Hitler

For those interested, there is a major piece on Nazi super babe Leni Riefenstahl, over at LA Weekly. It's a book review but in these times when the Hard Left and Feminist nut cases are trying to depict her as a wronged genius, this is more than just a good read. Pic of Leni (not a Nazi) at left preparing for her now famous documentary of the 1934 Nurenberg Nazi Party Rally, Triumph of the Will.

Two of her most notorious denials — of ever witnessing a massacre of Jews in Poland in September 1940 and of using unpaid Gypsy concentration-camp children for her 1940 film Tiefland — are roundly demolished by Trimborn and Bach alike (authors of two books reviewed), with photos placing her at the massacre and the postwar testimony of the few Gypsy witnesses who didn’t perish at Auschwitz.

An über Nazi, an incredible talent, and an artistic criminal of the first order. Left below: a masterful composition from a scene of the Nurnberg Rally showing how little the individual means when measured against the glory of the state. A great shot of the upcoming threat. From Triumph of the Will.

Imagine you joined the SS as you listen to the movie version of Panzerlied starring Robert Shaw. Click below. Scene is before Battle of Bulge. Shaw is the German general who has had his entire corps wiped out, the only ones left are he and his long time tank commander. The general staff sends him replacements that are nothing but teen agers, obviously inexperienced and unable to fight, he thinks. He has hurled a few contemptible insults at the children and is about to walk out. Then this scene where the children stand up and show what they are made of. One of the all time great scenes from one of the all time shitty movies.

Then there is this song, Horst Wessel Lied. A scene lifted from Leni's seminal work, Triumph of the Will. The song was so stirring that it is still banned in Germany. Oh that Leni.....



It was in Frankfurt during the spring of 1960 and I met this very pretty woman of about 50. She was so nice and seemed so delicate, but I knew by her age that she had to have been a Nazi since before the War. I asked her how she could possibly have joined the Nazi Party, she seemed so nice, gentle in fact. As she looked at me her smile faded and her eyes seemed to look past me in a dream, as if the past could barely be seen and oh so wistfully, almost heard.

"It was the parades," she whispered dreamily. "It was the music. It was so much fun for a young girl. Oh, the parades at night....with the lights and torches.....and the music.....and those wonderful boys singing at the tops of their voices. It made me so proud to be German. It was to be my future, and I just knew it would be wonderful"

So here's the last parade and march, as shot by Leni, featuring their favorite little song, the one which stirred the German masses like no other.