Leni Riefenstahl

[Guest gthureson]

http://www.rense.com/general28/leni.htm

 

 

 

A brief little page talking about Riefenstahl and how German public view of her has softened as she reaches her 100th birthday. For those not interested in reading the page, Leni Riefenstahl was, and still is, a German filmmaker whose two greatest works were 'Triumph of the Will', and 'Olympia'.

 

Yes, they were Propaganda films, but few deny that they were amazing pieces of work.

 

She was recently investigated for being a Holocaust Denier by the German courts, for claiming nothing happened to Gypsies used as extras in her film 'Tiefland', after they were sent back to concentration camps.

 

 

So, here are my questions:

 

1) Should public view of her soften? Does time and age forgive all sins? She has to be one of the last people alive who is still so vividly connected to the National Socialist regime. She knew what she was doing when she was making propaganda films.

 

 

2) Holocaust Denying is a crime in Germany. Under this law, that includes saying not as many died as claimed, or, as they investigated Riefenstahl for, saying Gypsies sent back to camps weren't killed.

 

While I am not saying Holocaust Denying should be encouraged in Germany, I am just not sure if these anti-Nazi laws are doing what they want them to do. While I have never had the opportunity to ever visit modern Germany and check out the society, the reports I do read and hear make me believe that the anti-Nazi laws are going to backfire in the longrun.

 

While the anti-immigrant movement seems to have died down since unification, the racist undertones amongst the youth still seems to be there, and despite the banning of Nazi symbols (or...more likely, because of it....), neo-Nazi and Aryan movements are still popular sub-sects of the underground.

 

Have the Germans, in their haste and zeal to atone for sins and declare themselves evil been counterproductive? Will the complete and total ban on remnants of the second world war such as symbols and revisionist history eventually backfire when the next generation comes along and, and is tired of being told that they are evil people at heart?

 

I'm not sure, but there are times when I'm checking out Reuters and BBC that I worry that its the next generation of Germans that the world will have to worry about. It'll be less industrial and punk bands and more militants.

[Guest godthedog]

my view of riefenstahl:

 

she has always vehemently denied any wrongdoing. you can't forgive anybody for something if they don't express contrition or regret.

 

she should get no special treatment over the other hack propaganda filmmakers, because she is HORRIBLY overrated as a filmmaker. i saw the first 20 minutes of the "stirring, resounding" 'triumph of the will' and it bored the shit out of me. even her big pre-war masterpiece, 'the blue light', sucks: i fell asleep three fucking times in that movie.

 

this really has nothing to do with the current charges against her, i just need to get that off my chest from the week i spent learning about her in feminist film theory.

[Guest Insane Bump Machine]

I don't know what Riefenstahl is doing nowadays and don't care either.

 

"While the anti-immigrant movement seems to have died down since unification, the racist undertones amongst the youth still seems to be there, and despite the banning of Nazi symbols (or...more likely, because of it....), neo-Nazi and Aryan movements are still popular sub-sects of the underground"

 

you can find groups like that everywhere in the world. I don't believe that our laws play a big role here. There will always be some racist idiots lurking around somewhere.

 

"Have the Germans, in their haste and zeal to atone for sins and declare themselves evil been counterproductive? Will the complete and total ban on remnants of the second world war such as symbols and revisionist history eventually backfire when the next generation comes along and, and is tired of being told that they are evil people at heart?"

 

We don't declare ourselves evil, at least not our (the current) generation. There is no complete and total ban, I don't know what you're talking about. What do you mean by revisionist history? The current generation is is already tired of being told that we're evil. Because we're not, we're not responsible for things that happened 60 years ago.

 

"I'm not sure, but there are times when I'm checking out Reuters and BBC that I worry that its the next generation of Germans that the world will have to worry about. It'll be less industrial and punk bands and more militants."

 

You could say the same thing about many other countries as well. Today's German society isn't all that different from England's or the USA's.