Leni Riefenstahl, nazi collaborator, and almost Hubbard collaborator, dead at 101

Leni Riefenstahl meets L. Ron Hubbard – 1960 We visited Leni
Riefenstahl at her house in Poecking on Starnberger Lake in summer
1990. The meeting, also over coffee and cookies, was very reserved on
both sides. This time it was turned around. Helnwein was very solemn
and Leni Riefenstahl resolutely stated her standpoints.

The following episode is unknown in Scientology circles, and it shows
that what goes around in life comes around, in this case as pertains
to the relationship between Riefenstahl, Hubbard and his young
disciple Helnwein. In summer 1960, Leni Riefenstahl was working on the
new production of her film classic, “Das blaue Licht”/[“The Blue
Light”]. For her project, she obtained a prominent American script
writer, L. Ron Hubbard. Leni Riefenstahl described this in her
memoirs, which appeared in 1987 from Knaus publishing: “… Good
reports came from England. Philip, my producer, reported almost daily
on the progress of his work. To be sure, Somerset Maughem [sic] had
withdrawn after the newspaper attacks on me, but, as Philip wrote, he
had been able to gain a gifted American author for work on the film.
‘This American,’ he wrote enthusiastically, ‘is a brilliant and gifted
script writer who wrote many scripts for Columbia Films in Hollywood.
He is also head of a large international organization which is spread
over the entire planet and has over a million members. His name is Dr.
L. Ron Hubbard, he is a psychologist and a Scientologist.’ At that
time, I had no idea who Ron Hubbard was, but I soon became aware that
he must have been gifted. The first part of his work was surprisingly
good. Mr. Hubbard sent me the following effusive telegram: ‘We can
win several Oscars with the wonderful story of Blue Light – forget the
trial and the reporters and let’s work together – it will be a great,
record-breaking film…’ A fanaticizer … Dr. Ron Hubbard put an
apartment at my disposal in London where I was to interpret the newly
prepared manuscript into theatrical script. He was unexpectedly called
to South Africa, where he also had a company. Despite that, I could go
in his house, which was occupied in his absence by a housekeeper … I
also hoped to begin filming soon after the prepared script for Blue
Light had been so magnificently managed by Dr. Hubbard …” This
post-war project by Leni Riefenstahl failed shortly before filming was
to have begun.

At this time of great despair in summer 1961 came from Dr. Hubbard in
South Africa a letter which, at first glance, aroused hope in me. He
invited me to Johannesburg to make a documentary film on South Africa.
He said money was no problem. He also hoped to gain my cooperation
by establishing modern film and recording studios there. I was so
excited, my heart was pounding at the very thought of being able to
work again, and in Africa at that.” This overblown project from
Hubbard also burst like a soap bubble. Hubbard fulfilled his big dream
of his own film studio almost two decades later, at the end of the
1970s, with his Golden Era Film Productions in Gilman Hot Springs.

Leni Riefenstahl, just turned 89 years old, stood patiently for more
than two hours for Gottfried Helnwein in her nice house. We left her
house with the nice garden contently. Our luggage included several
personally signed Riefenstahl photos. Helnwein was very satisfied and
thrilled that it had finally worked out. Unfortunately, Leni
Riefenstahl was not exactly enthused by the final prints. When she was
able to take assessment of her black and white portrait several years
later, she hit the roof. “You can see every single one of my
wrinkles!” she screamed, horrified, and wanted her photo to be taken
down immediately. The friendship she had begun with Helnwein was
immediately ended after that experience.

[End Quote]
http://www.innernet.net/joecisar/has.zip (Link appears to be broken)

New York Times obituary says about “The Blue Light.”

These films gave her the image of a romantic heroine in the Wagnerian
cast, in harmony with nature and bent on fighting evil. Her often
dangerous roles – she climbed rock faces barefoot and was once almost
swept away by an avalanche provoked by Fanck – also showed her to be
fearless. In 1932, she directed her first movie, “The Blue Light,”
another mountain film, in which she appeared as a warm-hearted peasant
girl. (The names of her Jewish co-writer, Bela Balázs, and the film’s
Jewish producer, Harry Sokal, were removed from the credits when “The
Blue Light” was reissued in 1938.)

It was also around this time, a year before Hitler’s rise to power,
that she first heard the Nazi leader speak at a rally. “I heard his
voice: `Fellow Germans’,” she recalled in her autobiography. “That
very same instant I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never
able to forget. It seemed as if the earth’s surface were spreading out
before me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle,
spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the
sky and shook the earth. I felt paralyzed.”

She subsequently wrote to Hitler, noting that “I must confess that I
was so impressed by you and by the enthusiasm of the spectators that I
would like to meet you personally.” Her popularity as an actress made
the request seem reasonable; Hitler’s appreciation of her role in “The
Blue Light” made the encounter possible.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/09/obituaries/09CND-RIEF.html

Riefenstahl’s memory of the Hubbard encounter is almost certainly
correct, although the picture of him conveyed by her producer Philip
is certainly BS. The telegram Riefenstahl said she got from Hubbard
sounds exactly like him:  ‘We can  win several Oscars with the
wonderful story of Blue Light – forget the trial and the reporters and
let’s work together – it will be a great, record-breaking film…’

There was a typed manuscript of “The Blue Light,” in English, and
there was some correspondence from Hubbard to Riefenstahl about the
project, in the Hubbard archive when I was working with it in 1980-81.

Hubbard didn’t win those several Oscars with his wonderful “Blue
Light” story, but that didn’t stop him, because four decades later he
pulled in perhaps a record number of Razzies with “Battlefield Mirth.”

Gerry Armstrong
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org

Notes