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In Eva Braun, Hitler had a mistress with a loyal heart and who practiced blind obedience. In Riefenstahl, he had identified his ideal German woman. In her acting career, she played characters who were brave and heroic and usually of the peasant class. Hitler admired her traits and talents, something of which Riefenstahl was aware. She exploited her role as the dominant woman in Hitler's life in order to gain carte blanche of her Party funded projects, much to the consternation of Joseph Goebbels. As head of the Propaganda Ministry, she was politically aware, intelligent, capable, and fiercely loyal. Tension began to grow between Goebbels and Riefenstahl as the competition for the Fuhrer's attention escalated. Riefenstahl emerged triumphant and began to garner coveted directorial tasks away from Goebbels, thus furthering her career as a film maker and propagandist. A chief component of Riefenstahl's success with Hitler was the way in which she projected German women.
In her masterpiece, ''Triumph of the will,'' women are depicted in only two ways; as smiling peasants in parades and as adoring fans of the Fuhrer. The women shown in the crowds are smiling with delight, cheering in ecstasy, and even holding handkerchiefs to their faces to wipe away tears of exhilaration. There were no scenes of women working or participating in any political events. Not coincidentally, in her later book of photographic work, ''The Last of the Nuba''<ref>Leni Riefenstahl, ''Last of the Nuba'' (London: Harvill Press, 1986)</ref>, involving an African tribe in Sudan, Riefenstahl again depicts the males as warriors and physically perfect while the women watch from the sidelines and wait only to be chosen as a wife by one of the virile men in order to bear his child. Although African, they were of pure ancestry, strong, and non-materialistic; all qualities for which the Nazi’s Hitler longed.
Similar qualities were also to be found in ''Olympia'', Riefenstahl’s film concerning the 1936 Olympics held in Germany. The opening sequence shows men of physical perfection participating in feats of athleticism, strength, and endurance. Throughout the two part piece, women are shown primarily in the audience cheering. This is how Hitler wanted women depicted to the world. Nazi The National Socialist ideology did not support women achieving greatness as athletes or politicians; another reason Riefenstahl fit so perfectly into his utopic utopian fantasy.
== Ignorance ==
