Quiz 2 - Leni Riefenstahl and Anti-Semitism

Leni’s given name

Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl

Leni’s birthday

April 5, 1902

Leni in 1918

Leaves high school and begins dance lessons at the Grimm-Reiter School of the Dance

Leni career change motives

Knee injury ended dance career, but she saw Arno Fanck’s Mountain of Destiny and decided to become an actress

Mountain of Destiny

First film shot in the mountains (1924)

Arno Fanck

Wealthy geologist who used his money to establish the mountain adventure films in the 1920’s

Leni and Fanck

Leni sent headshots to Fanck and got cast in the Sacred Mountain (1926)

Leni’s stunts

Learned to ski and rock climb barefoot without ropes

Leni’s first production

Produced, directed, and starred in the Blue Light (1932)

Hitler learning of Leni

Saw the Blue Light and was impressed

Goebbels and Leni

Goebbels and his wife introduce Leni to Hitler

Leni and the Olympics

Hitler hired Leni to film the 1936 Berlin Olympics

Festival of Life

Part 1 of 2 of 6 hours of footage of the Olympics

Festival of Beauty

Part 2 of 2 of 6 hours of footage of the Olympics

Leni’s Nazi ties

Solidified after Kristallnacht, where her reception in America turns cold

Mein Kampf

Book written by Hitler during his 5 years in prison

Triumph of the Will team

135 technicians, drivers, officials, and police guards, plus 16 cameramen

Triumph of the Will set

Bridges and towers were built

Triumph of the Will cameras

Tracks were laid for cameras to move along

Triumph of the Will flagpole

Enormous flagpole equipped with an electric lift to take the cameraman to the top as marchers fanned out below

Triumph of the Will fire engine

Requisitioned to enable a camera at the top of a 90-foot ladder to film across city rooftops

Triumph of the Will ramp

Built in the main square to allow the camera to track along with the marching troops

Anti-Semitism in Medieval Europe

Jews were made to wear a badge

Ghetto

Term likely derived from an iron foundry in Venice, Italy in 1516

Pogrom

Derived from Russian for “mob”

First extensive pogroms

Followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881

Jewish Population in Germany in 1933

Only 0.76% (about ½ million people)

June 1935

Nazi Party demanded all Jews be excluded from state citizenship and be given the death penalty if they rent property to Aryans

September 1935

Nuremberg Laws were passed because conservatives wanted the anti-Semitic activity regulated

Jewish Businesses in Germany in 1933

About 50,000

Jewish Businesses in Germany in July 1938

Only 9,000

Jewish Occupation Bans

Medicine and law

August 17, 1938

Law passed that all male Jews had to add the forename “Israel” to all official documents and female Jews had to add the name “Sara”

Marriage ban

Between Jews and Aryans

Country that took in Deported Jews

Dominican Republic in hoping to “whiten” its population with European immigrants

Madagascar solution

Idea that all Jews should be deported to Madagascar

Evian Conference

From July 6-14, 1938, 32 countries assembled at a French resort to deliberate on and ultimately refuse to increase quotas for Jewish immigration