Riefenstahl made excellent films. None more powerful than “The Triumph of the Will” which extolled Hitler and the nazi party. The camera angles are magnificent, including a camera mounted on a flagpole and automatically controlled. Yes, her choice of subject matter is regrettable. Her film on the 1936 Olympics also invented the “tradition” of running the Olympic Torch from Olympia to the Olympics site.
In her early career, she was a beautiful actress. I’ve seen one movie with her in the lead and directing: “The Blue Light.” It is available on Netflix, as is “S.O.S. Iceberg” (which I just added to my queue). But she consistently lost leads to Marlene Dietrich. Hence her second career as a filmographer. Late in life she made aquatic movies/documentaries which I haven’t seen.
Fritz Lang was offered the job of Nazi propagandist. He got the hell out. Leni Riefenstahl served the Nazi party by choice.
Lang’s wife stayed in Germany. Marlene Dietrich got out of Germany as well. In interviews, Dietrich stated that she had been approached by representatives of the Nazi Party to return to Germany, but had turned them down flat. Dietrich became an American citizen in 1939.