One of Leni Riefenstahl’s major contribution to documentary film was Olympia: Fest Der Völker and Olympia: Fest Der Shöenheit (1938)/ Olympia: Festival of the People and Olympia: Festival of Beauty, a two-part film of the 1936 Berlin Olympics hosted by Germany. The first great sports film ever made, it featured staged prologues, innovative camera techniques, and a fluid editing style that elevated it far above the typical sporting events film. Sanctioned by the International Olympics Committee as the official film of the 1936 Olympics, and financed ostensibly by the German film company, TOBIS, but in reality by the Nazi regime, Olympia begins with a reverential tribute to the origin of the games—ancient Greece. The camera tracks through smoky, silhouetted statues and ruins of ancient temples. Suddenly one of the statues is transformed into a human being—a discus thrower. A dance scene that includes Riefenstahl herself precedes the lighting of the Olympic torch and a symbolic journey from ancient Greece to modern Berlin. The first part of Olympia features the many track and field events. Riefenstahl always thought in terms of the most artistically composed shot, so for the pole-vaulting sequence, she had pits dug to capture the athletes catapulted across the sky. In slow motion, their graceful bodies seem to defy gravity. Throughout both parts of the film, Riefenstahl used balloons, dollies, catapults, telescopic lenses, any means she could employ to convey the pain and ecstasy of competition. For the diving competition, Riefenstahl used underwater cameras to follow the divers below as well as above the surface of the water. Perhaps the most famous sequence is the high diving competition in part two of Olympia. The sequence begins with a series of fast-paced dives that gradually become more silhouetted as the sky darkens. Projected in slow motion, the ballet-like acrobatics of the divers framed against a cloud-laced sky appear almost super human. In fact, one of the criticisms of Olympia is that Riefenstahl ’s seemingly cult-like obsession with beauty, particularly the beauty of the human body, reflected a fascist aesthetic consistent with the ideals of the Nazi Party. This argument is undermined, however, by the fact that the star of the 1936 Olympics was a Black athlete, Jesse Owens, who received prominent attention in the film and contradicted Nazi notions of a superior Aryan race. Olympiapremiered in 1938 at the UFA-Palast am Zoo in Berlin and was later shown throughout Europe. It won numerous awards, including the Grand Prize at the International Film Festival in Venice. In 1956 American directors designated it one of the ten best films of all time.

In 1938 Riefenstahl traveled to the United States to promote Olympia, but her visit was marred by anti-Nazi sentiment that followed Germany’s Crystal Night, a night of terror in which Jewish synagogues, homes, and businesses were wrecked, burned, and looted, and more than 30,000 Jews were arrested. Hitler biographer John Toland noted: “The reaction from abroad was immediate and the acts of brutality were given an unforgettable name—inspired by the multitude of smashed windows—Crystal Night. On all sides Germany was assailed as a barbarous nation.” Despite a friendly visit in Chicago with automobile tycoon Henry Ford, the film world by and large shunned her. Gary Cooper cancelled an invitation to meet her, and Walt Disney declined an offer to screen Olympia. Later, he told the press he really didn’t know who Leni Riefenstahl was.

Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl