Leni Reifenstahl

Visionary – the images she created on film proved she was a genius at making motion pictures. She hasn’t directed a movie in more than 50 years, but remains the most famous woman filmmaker in history, and the most despised. Leni Reifenstahl was called “Hitler’s director.” Some contend she was also Hitler’s lover, which she disputes, but there is no disputing the influence of her movies – especially Triumph of the Will, perhaps the most powerful propaganda film ever made. In her hands, a movie camera became a magnifying glass, capable of enlarging Adolf Hitler into a giant. Reifenstahl claims she never uttered an anti-Semitic word, and never knew what Hitler was doing. But many others insist she was a war criminal, and her weapon wasn’t a rifle or poison gas, but her films.