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The poster for Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Die Gotter des Stadions" ("The Gods of the Stadium"), about the 11th Summer Olympic Games. This film and her other work "Olympic Youth" were combined to make one film, "Olympia."

Photograph | Photograph Number: 14919
The poster for Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Die Gotter des Stadions" ("The Gods of the Stadium"), about the 11th Summer Olympic Games. This film and her other work "Olympic Youth" were combined to make one film, "Olympia."

The poster for Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Die Gotter des Stadions" ("The Gods of the Stadium"), about the 11th Summer Olympic Games. This film and her other work "Olympic Youth" were combined to make one film, "Olympia."

Date
1938
Locale
Berlin, [Berlin] Germany
Variant Locale
Berlin-Buckow
Berlin-Mariendorf
Berlin-Ploetzensee
Berlin-Reinickendorf
Berlin-Tempelhof
Berlin-Wannsee
Berlin-Schlachtensee
Berlin-Duppel
Photo Designation
OLYMPICS -- Berlin Games (1936) -- Posters/Publications/Press
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Galerie Prospect

About This Photograph

Biography
Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) began her artistic career as a ballet dancer. She began her career in film as an actress in 1925, starring in the "Der Heilige Berg" (The Holy Mountain). Throughout the remainder of the 1920s and into the early 1930s, Riefenstahl made a number of "mountain" movies, her last being "SOS Eisberg" in 1933. In that year, Riefenstahl was commissioned by Adolf Hitler to begin making films for the NSDAP. In that position, Riefenstahl became the "cinematic interpreter" of the National Socialist vision of a perfect German society. In 1935, she produced Reichsparteitag (Reich Party Day) and in 1938, her documentary of the 1936 Berlin Olympic games was released. Her greatest work however, was entitled "Triumph des Willens" (Triumph of the Will). Produced in 1935, the film is a documentary of the 1934 Nazi party rally in Nuremberg. Following the downfall of the Third Reich, Riefenstahl came under attack for her complicity in making Nazi propaganda. Riefenstahl responded to her critics by claiming political naivete and ignorance of the intentions of the Nazis.

[Sources: Wistrich, Robert. "Who's Who in Nazi Germany." MacMillan, 1982; Zentner, Christian. "Encyclopedia of the Third Reich." MacMillan, 1990.]

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Galerie Prospect
Source Record ID: Collections: 1990.333.41
 
Record last modified: 2015-04-16 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1080479