15,697
edits
Changes
no edit summary
== Ignorance ==
[[File:leniandhitler.jpg|thumbnail|200px|Riefenstahl with Adolph Hitler.]]
A self-possessed artist, Riefenstahl remained intentionally ignorant to the realities taking place in her environment when such realities interfered with her ambitions. She was filming in the Swiss Alps in 1933 when the Nazi book burnings took place but was immediately informed of the events upon her return to Germany. In Muller's documentary, she admits to confronting Hitler and supposedly admonishing him for sanctioning the destruction. She continues by describing the details of being escorted out of his Austrian home after he became enraged with her for raising the issue. As an intelligent woman, it must have been apparent to Riefenstahl that something was dreadfully wrong with Germany's new regime yet she chose to ignore the incident and never again disagreed with the Fuhrer on any social or political issues. When she discovered friends emigrating from Germany and Jewish shops were being closed and boycotted, she chose to ignore the reality and scope of what was transpiring in order to maintain her place in the Party and Hitler's circle.
On June 30, 1934 the event called the Night of the Long Knives took place wherein the SA was purged and its leader, Ernst Rohm was assassinated. Hitler sanctioned Rohm's murder yet Riefenstahl never questioned him as to Rohm's fate. By 1934 little was done within the Third Reich without the Fuhrer's authorization, a fact with which Riefenstahl was aware. Why then did she continue a relationship with a man she knew to be a killer? Either she did not care that Hitler was a murderer of she did not care that Rohm was murdered. By not questioning anyone as to Rohm's whereabouts, she was able to remain blissfully ignorant and maintain deniability.
