From the memoirs of David Irving

LENI Riefenstahl, film-maker and photographer, was born in Berlin on August 22, 1902. She died in Pöcking, Bavaria, on September 8, 2003, aged 101.

THREE days after visiting Walter Frentz, I went to see Leni Riefenstahl. It was July 14, 1989. Like the later Frau Traudl Junge, she also effortlessly practiced a two-tier approach to Hitler's memory, depending on whom she was with. I make no criticism of this -- I am well versed now in Germany's unique criminal law on history. We visited her in her hillside villa at Pöcking, south of Munich, where she lived with Horst ("Horstie") Kettner, her well-built and youthful protector.

I had Sally Cox with me, whom I had just accompanied up to the Obersalzberg for only my second "pilgrimage" -- to quote the Daily Mail's unhelpful reference to the first, published thirty years earlier. Much had been quietly eradicated, but if you knew where to look into the hillside scrub you could find the basement windows of Hitler's ruined Berghof, and the shells of Göring's and other villas dotted around the wasted mountain slope. This time I took in the Eagle's Nest [Adlerhorst] as well, on the summit of the Kehlstein, the eyrie built for the Chief by his then estate manager Martin Bormann in 1937. We were not alone, as half a million tourists now visit the site every year.

Almost as soon as we stepped into her airy open-plan drawing room, Leni Riefenstahl sensed that she could switch off the public voice and slip into a higher gear, while Horstie listened in admiringly. Her eyes gleamed as she recalled those early years of Hitler's empire. She needed no coaxing to offer us a private showing of her 1934 epic, Triumph of the Will (at that time she believed its 1933 predecessor, Victory of Faith, lost for ever).

"Of course," she said disarmingly, momentarily slipping into safety-gear, "I made it at my own expense and not in any way for the Nazi Party." I had found in the East German (communist) archives the year before the Propaganda Ministry files documenting the substantial subsidy that Dr Goebbels had granted for the film, but I was too well-bred to say anything that might disturb the mood.

Besides, the film itself was proof: as the loudspeaker crackled the Horst Wessel Anthem, the screen filled with the opening title sequence, hewn from blocks of MGM-style granite: IM AUFTRAG DES FÜHRERS, the blocks of giant stone thundered: "At the Command of the Führer."

Like a guide on a tourist bus, she had already launched into her running commentary, but it was vivid and excitable, and for a documentary film buff like myself it had a unique interest. "No, that opening sequence of the Junkers 52 flying over the rooftops of Nuremberg --" she said. ("-- bringing The Messiah down from the Heavens --" I chimed in, irreverently) "that was not my idea."

Dreary, ill-recorded music accompanied one of the most famous documentary opening shots ever made. She seemed curiously eager to disown it.

"My opening sequence is the shot that follows, the swastika banner fluttering outside the attic window."

She was like every professional creative artist or author: somewhere, some busybody had overruled her all those years ago, and fifty-five years later it still rankled.

The scene changed and the cheers of thousands who have doubtless long passed on and perhaps even later regretted their enthusiasm, filled her basement room. We were riding in Hitler's open six-wheeled Mercedes, right behind him, looking over his shoulder at the multitudes as he gave his funny little stiff-armed salute.

In those days, it occurred to me, world leaders could safely ride around in open cars. "For the next ten minutes," Leni was saying, "there is no commentary -- just cheering." That was her idea too.

Another thought occurred to me. I had seen the other camera angles of that procession, and there was no woman in Hitler's car.

"Ach, nein," she laughed. "Das hat der Frentz gemacht." [It was Frentz who filmed that.]

"Walter Frentz?" I exclaimed. "He was the cameraman in the car? He worked with you on Triumph of the Will? We were with him three days ago, and he never mentioned that."

"Mr Irving," said Leni Riefenstahl, with the voice of somebody explaining the painfully obvious: "I spent two years in jail for making Triumph. People don't usually volunteer that they worked on that."

[copyright © David Irving 3007]

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