La Mirada del Mal

What you need to know before your trail

In May 1945, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, Leni Riefenstahl burned documents, letters, and photographs in her garden in anticipation of the imminent arrival of the Americans. Distraught over her relationship with Hitler and his inner circle, Leni reflected on her artistic and personal past, a past that made her the most celebrated woman of the Third Reich, the most famous director in the world, and the only person able to address the Führer informally after directing Triumph of the Will, the film about the Sixth Congress of the National Socialist Party. Undeniably talented, her rise seemed unstoppable, but Kristallnacht and World War II called her career as a filmmaker into question. Her name therefore has became associated with the visual power of Nazism and the ambiguous boundary between art and propaganda.