Leni Riefenstahl: R.I.P.

[Wired For Sound]

Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will is a brilliant propaganda film not just for it's artistic genius, but also for it's presentation of the logical consequences of the altruist/collectivist worldview. Triumph of the Will was one example amoung many that made me realize Ayn Rand was right.

Moral condemnation for Leni Riefenstahl collaboration with the Nazis is understandable. What I find interesting, however, is that a large number of people share many of the same premises that created the Nazis in the first place.

And Nazism wasn't a consequence of the effect of the WW1. Since philosophy deals with the broadest of abstractions, it is philosophy that is the prime mover of a Culture. Germany broke away from the Enlightenment with Kant. Hegel, the State worshipper, saw initiating War -- via the nation state -- as a way to thrust humankind forward. There are many others, such as Herder. Yes, there's more to this. But, the primary cause is to be found in philosophy.

 

[HowardHughes]

Okay, let me check this out - is the going argument that the National Socialists are not directly to blame, but the words of a philosopher????

Maybe we should bring this back to say the anti-abortionist who kills a doctor. Maybe that guy in FLA - what was his defence? That it was written in the Bible, and he was simply saving lives? Why didn't he miss his appointment with death row? Because you have to get past the issue that he killed not out of self-defence, but rather to force his opinion onto others. He killed. Plain and simple. Abortion is legal in FLA, but murder is not.

As for the multitude of defendants at Nuremburg who shrugged their shoulders and said "I was simply following orders" - well, we know where they wound up.

Leni really should have been up there with 'em. She didn't pull the trigger, but added to the National Socialist mindset at the time.

 

[Kathy P]

If you haven't seen Schindler's List yet, Wired For Sound, please rent it soon. The scene I want you to pay particular attention to is the one which shows the Jewish children in the labour camp being rounded up by the Nazis and put onto trucks to be transported to the death camps. As they're being driven away, they're waving at their parents who, naturally, go beserk when they realize their children are being evacuated. It was the most difficult scene to watch being filmed according to Leah Adler, Steven Spielberg's mother, who was in Poland with her son and the crew when Schindler's List was filmed.

After you've seen that, let us know if your philosophical argument concerning Nazism and war is so ambiguous and academic.

Murdered children are not the broadest of abstractions. They are about as concrete an example of pure evil that you will ever realize.

 

[monkeylove]

After you've seen that, let us know if your philosophical argument concerning Nazism and war is so ambiguous and academic.

Murdered children are not the broadest of abstractions. They are about as concrete an example of pure evil that you will ever realize.

We were talking about Leni. Is a corporate videographer for Dow Chemical (the manufacturer of Agent Orange ) responsible for the birth defects of Vietnamese children? Are you boycotting Dow Chemical because of it? Leni was definitely an amoral opportunist, but her being a Nazi or directly responsible for the final solution, come on!

What about the ships filled with Jewish refugees that were turned away form our boarders during WWII. If you want to hand out guilt, it can be attributed to many.

There is still ethnic cleansing happening in our day. All you moralists should be where it is happening to stop it!!! Or what will you say? We didn't know what was happening? Or we did nothing?

A child is a child is a child. A Jewish child deserves the right to life and freedom. A Vietnamese child deserves the right to life and freedom. A Liberian child deserves the right to life and freedom.

 

[bobistheowl]

Had Riefenstahl refused to make Triumph of the Will, she might likely have been jailed, and Hitler would just have chosen a different filmaker.

Evil though he was, no one can argue that Hitler was a charismatic individual, in public, anyway. One of his legacies that lives on is the technique of uniting one group by chosing another group, to which they do not belong, as the source of all of society's ills. One has only to listen to a radical feminist's views on white males, and substitute Jews in their place.

The best way to circumvent logical thought is to cater to primitive negative emotions like hate and fear.

Perhaps we should blame Einstein, Teller and Oppenheimer for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945. Maybe The Duke should be blamed for Viet Nam attrocities for starring in The Green Berets. While we're at it, let's blame heavy metal music for teenage suicides. Next we can blame the cast of Friends, for being employees of NBC, which is owned by General Electric, which built the bombs that destroyed the house that Saddam built.

As for individuals standing up for a moral right against against an angry, armed mob, well, that only succeeds in Kung Fu movies. Sticks and stones don't work well against guns. Just ask the decendants of the North American Indians.

Were it not for Ms Riefenstahl's considerable film making skills, we would not now be debating her culpability in wartime attrocities, and her death would have gone largely unnoticed, perhaps a half page bio in The Globe and Mail, and a 2 x 3 inch column buried on page 17 in the other dailies.

We're all familiar with George Santayana's famous quote " Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it". It's very important that an historical record such as Triumph of the Will be seen by successive generations, not as entertainment or inspiration, but as a warning against allowing the mistakes of the past to be repeated. Before one can fight evil, one must first recognize evil.

There are those posting in this thread who would vilify anyone who's opinions differ from those of his or her own. That, too, is a living legacy of The Third Reich.

 

[Kathy P]

I wholly agree with BBKing. Labelling something legitimate doesn't make something less evil. As far as I am concerned, legitimizing national socialism as legitimate is part of the problem. That's the classical defence that many in Germany used after the war, in fact it was the defense many of the accused in the dock at the Nuremberg trials used: "I was just behaving according to the law." It's wasn't accepted as legitimate. If you know the law, or in the case of the military, an order violates the basic code of decent human conduct you not only have a right to violate it in the face of the law, you have any obligation to violate it. This was something discussed at great length and debated during the My Lai (spelling?) murderers by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War.

As for the claim that Hitler was charismatic, I don't agree. No matter how many movies and documentaries I have watched of him, I still don't get what attracted people to him as a leader. He was a shrill, lunatical (word?) moron. His method of speaking publicly made him sound as though he had a lobotomy. He was neither inspiring nor worthy of the kind of following that he had. The only thing I can think that caused the people who loved him the way that they did was because they agreed with the substance of his speeches, with the hate and venom towards Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill, lesbians, gays and handicapped that he spewed.

As for the idea of holding people or corporations culpable for their role in atrocities, I have no problem with that. I don't buy the argument that Leni would have been jailed if she didn't co-operate. Even if that were true, she had an obligation as a person to refuse to do it. Frankly, I think you're letting her off the hook too easily. You're making it sound as though the making of Hitler's propaganda films was something she greatly disliked. I heard someone who interviewed her on CBC Radio last night. He said that she looked back to her film making experiences with Heir Hitler with fondness.

As for the purported ineffectiveness of individual efforts, I need only name Gandhi, Mandela, King, Rosa Parks, etc. to demonstrate that many individuals who stand up do so with great effect. As far as I am concerned I would rather die standing up for the right reason - being a moral, decent human being who respects the rights of others - than live knowing I capitulated to evil and then claimed I had to do it because it was too touch otherwise.

 

[Kathy P]

That should have been tough, not touch!

 

[Kathy P]

Another point: As for Bob is the owl's claim that "those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat it," I think the issue is not remembering the Nazis but how they are remembered. The representation that Leni made in her films showed a glorious, heroic version of the Nazis and the German war machine. For someone who does not know anything of that time period in history, they might take that representation at face value, if they see her films, and think of it as credible. I think the criticism is (and it's a valid one) not that she had a different point of view, but that she purported to document a portion of history with a bias that was dictated to her by her subject. As a filmmaker/quasi-journalist that is not only inaccurate, it's unprofessional. If you are truly documenting something, you're not making statements or taking sides. You're presenting both sides of the same issue and letting the audience decide for themselves which they think is more credible. Did she provide the anti-thesis to the Nazis in her films? Was there a mention of another side? The answer, of course, is no because the films were made with a very specific, pre-determined agenda. That is what wrong with what she did apart from the fact that she gave a murderous asshole an uncritical platform to aggrandize himself.

 

[Wired For Sound]

Howard Hughs, where did I say Nazis weren't directly responsible for the evil they perpetrated? I said she should've been morally condemned so in a real sense I'm not letting her off the hook. It was the Nazis who ACCEPTED and IMPLIMENTED the ideas that dominated the intellectual establishment. We've volition and thus choose what we accept. And that's not even even good enough. Look at Gryfie and his ilk. They don't want a Market economy -- they claim -- and yet accept it's fruits. They're collectivists who rage against poverty and do something to end it by forcing others through taxation to end it for them (ohhhh, sure you care sooooo much, lol). Of course that doesn't work and makes us all poorer, but never mind. I want the moral credit when I help, hey, I care for Gryfies mind and I won't force him to be my slave. And the same goes for the hard greens. They oppose modernity yet where are most of them? You got it: right here driving their cars. Most of us have contradictory philosophic ideas in our heads and compromise because reality clashes with our most charished beliefs. Religion is a fine example. Those Islamists that attacked the Western World on 9-11 accepted -- and without contradiction -- implimented their love of Allah (Since God is literally nothing, they've become nothing). A

Kathy P has a neo-Platonic view of philosophy and therefore sees abstractions as divorced from reality. It is not abstraction vs concretes (read: reality). Abstractions don't exist, (God is an example of this kind of improper Abstraction) they're a product of an interaction between our minds and reality. Schindler's List made me cry because I see the intimate connection between ideas and reality. And 9-11 also made me weep and reflect on the evil impact of certain ideas accepted, and implimented, without compromise -- thankfully a majority Western Muslims want compromise.

 

[SDFeuerzauber]

Re: Re: Re: Re: What's your point?

..understand the errors everyday Germans made when they ignored the Nazi's crimes.

Everyday Germans are about the only people on earth that have acknowledged and never stopped appologizing and paying for such crimes. When will Americans, Russians, Czechs, et al. begin??

 

[anon1]

History is written by the victors.

 

[Takeda Shingen]

Two articles on Riefenstahl:

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1038696,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3093706.stm

 

[monkeylove]

trying to bring the argument to some sort of moral relativitist dream world- answer me this- do you think her film helped hitler and glorified his leadership?

Glorified? To who? Those who were already mesmerized or those who despised him? Does the film glorify him to you?

Helped Hitler? That is debatable. Was the US media who propagated the Jessica Lynch fiction responsible for the US victory in Iraq? Maybe.

and do you think that helping the nazi leadership is a bad thing?

Yes!!!

However I do not believe that she was a "fucking Nazi" who "is going to hell along with those other bastards", as I do not believe in your "hell".

 

[monkeylove]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's your point?

And your point is? Are you saying that the Americans, Russian, Czechs ( Why the Czechs and not China or Japan) crimes come close to what the German people brought to World under Hitler.
Not even close - the German people should be apoligizing, but nothing will wipe the blood from their hands. AS for doing evrything they can - property remains unreturned to the families that owned them prior to Hitler.

I guess it is statements like these that I have a problem with in this thread. Evil is evil. Killing innocent children is killing innocent children! Some people's evil is not MORE evil than others; unless you are being entrapped by the same ideology that they were.

<shakes his head ... it is hopeless ... I guess it will all continue ... sadly>

 

[Wired For Sound]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's your point?

And your point is? Are you saying that the Americans, Russian, Czechs ( Why the Czechs and not China or Japan) crimes come close to what the German people brought to World under Hitler.
Not even close - the German people should be apoligizing, but nothing will wipe the blood from their hands. AS for doing evrything they can - property remains unreturned to the families that owned them prior to Hitler.

As usual people lack a clear understanding of moral principles and so we get bbking, monkeylove and SDFeuerzauber making moral equivalence errors

The crimes under the leadership of Joseph Stalin are NOT the same as America's retaliatory use of force upon Japan. The U.S.S.R was a Communist Dictatorship, the United States is a Constitutional Democracy. BBking (and SDFeuerzauber) lumps in dictatorships and an open society as if they were one in the same with the USA. Yes, what Germany did was uniquely evil, but the Communists were unique in their evil too. Both were bloody dictatorships.

Monkeylove, would have us believe that evil is evil. So if ML killed someone in self defense he should be charged with first degree murder? Is that what you believe, MF? Initiation and retaliation are NOT the same. The innocents that dies as a result of a retaliatory use of force is on the hands of the initiators of force, e.g. Israel's retaliatory use of force on Hamas.

 

[Takeda Shingen]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's your point?

... making moral equivalence errors ...

Moral? What is moral?

I, Takeda Shingen banished my father, forced my brother to commit suicide so I can become leader of my clan. Under me leadership, the Takeda Army has been almost invincible, my exploits in battle are legendary. I am the Napolean of Japan!

 

[monkeylove]

As usual people lack a clear understanding of moral principles ... making moral equivalence errors

Initiation and retaliation are NOT the same. The innocents that dies as a result of a retaliatory use of force is on the hands of the initiators of force, e.g. Israel's retaliatory use of force on Hamas.

Hehehe Morals eh? I guess you have an authoritative understanding of absolute moral principles.

Moral/Ethics are variable to a given society. Certain previous societies viewed homosexuality as immoral. Current society is on the verge of the acceptance of homosexuality. Certain ancient societies viewed child sacrifice as religious piety.

Within my morals or ethical code I agree that what the Nazis did was heinous. However, heinously evil acts are still being committed that are just as bad! Even if you want to say that they do not compare to that of those evil blood drenched Germans who committed the most heinous of all for all eternity! And whose children’s children will still be guilty and accountable.

Tell me, in your ethics, if some guy kill my brother it is ok for me to slaughter his whole family as retribution and then it is ok for him to retaliate and so on and so on ...

 

[SDFeuerzauber]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: What's your point?

And your point is? Are you saying that the Americans, Russian, Czechs ( Why the Czechs and not China or Japan) crimes come close to what the German people brought to World under Hitler.
Not even close - the German people should be apoligizing, but nothing will wipe the blood from their hands. AS for doing evrything they can - property remains unreturned to the families that owned them prior to Hitler.

There are so many poorly-educated people here that it's impossible to keep up with all the errors. For starters, "et al" is short for "and others," meaning that the US, Czech Rep, and Russia are a subset of a larger list.

Regarding your pathetic attempt to address property losses...
Germany lost 20% of its land and everyone probably thinks that's fine but what about the innocent people that lived there? Nearly all of Poland + present day Kaliningrad were carved out of germany in <2 years and the people ended up where? many as slave laborers in poland and russia where they were raped to death or worked to death or frozen to death. Russia wanted 3 trillion as reparations and they got it in the form of wristwatches, jewelry, homes, factories, railroads, and uranium.

Regarding murders of people (planned and otherwise) after 8 may 1945 by Czech, USA, Russia, and others, please send PM and only if you have a think stomach.

We'll start with the Morgenthau plan (USA) or Public law 115 of 1946 in Czech Rep; in other words, planned murders of millions of people by countries that do not include Germany, Japan, or Russia.

 

[Takeda Shingen]

I guess I will side with SDFeuerzauber on this one.

What he says is true. Nazi Germany was nothing special nor unique. All throughout human history, we (humanity as a whole) have had wars, tried to wipe out other cultures/countries justified by "being better then them" and or wanting their resources. Just look back ...

Furthermore, Nazi Germany is a fine example how weak individual are, submitting to an authority in which we (as individual) know is "wrong". However, is expansion really "wrong"? A certain country only does it to secure its interest. I do not see anything wrong with it. Back in the days, securing one's interest was done through war (hard politics). Now that times has changed, this is done by trade/economics (soft politics). What is the difference? None. Want an example of modern imperialism technically known as neo-imperialism? Just look at the behavior of the USA.

 

[HowardHughes]

Takeda,

I really don't know how you can sleep at night. It simply amazes me.