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Oscar Honors A Nazi (Debbie Schlussel Introduces New Website)
Debbie Schussel.com ^ | 3/01/04 | Debbie Schlussel

Posted on 03/15/2004 1:49:26 AM PST by goldstategop

Oscar Honors a Nazi March 1, 2004

Hitler’s favorite propagandist has finally been rehabilitated.

At Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, Hollywood gave Leni Riefenstahl its kosher seal of approval.

As it does every year, the Oscars ceremony paid homage and tribute to all of the great actors, directors, composers, and other showbiz types who passed on in the previous year.

But along with recently deceased legends like Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, Donald O’Connor, Robert Stack, Buddy Hackett -- and even John Ritter, Ms. Riefenstahl was so honored.

Incredibly, the Hollywood audience in attendance gave loud applause in response to the televised photo and name of the German filmmaker who used concentration camp prisoners as extras.

Should Hollywood’s most important institution accord any recognition to this woman?

Riefenstahl claimed she was never a Nazi and didn’t sympathize with Hitler, but her actions and statements indicate otherwise. During the Nazi era, Riefenstahl:

was personally hand-picked by Hitler to make films glorifying Hitler, the Nazi party, and the infamous Nazi-run Berlin Olympics, at which Jews were excluded. (In 1932, Hitler told her, "Once we come to power, you must make my films.")

received financing for several of her films from Nazi propaganda officer Goebbels’ and his Ministry.

"employed" Gypsy prisoners of concentration camps as extras in her films, their last stop before deportation to Nazi death camps where half of them were exterminated.

Deleted the names of Jewish co-writers from her first film, "The Blue Light" when it was re-issued in 1938.

Riefenstahl "played a leading role in making propaganda for the most evil regime in human history," said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, in protesting the Academy recognition.

Would someone worthy of Academy Award tribute utter these famous Reifenstahlisms about Hitler?:

"Your deeds exceed the power of human imagination. They are without equal in the history of mankind. How can we ever thank you?" (1940 telegram from Riefenstahl congratulating Hitler on conquering Paris)

"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."

"That evening I felt that Hitler desired me as a woman" (regarding one of her many meetings with Hitler, though she denied they were lovers).

Was it ignorance, or just "the Academy’s" insistence on judging the art and not the artist?

If the standard is the latter, then Hollywood has a more lax standard for Nazis than for anti-Communists.

Remember Elia Kazan? He also died in 2003 and was part of the televised memorial honor roll that included Riefenstahl, Sunday.

But in 2002, actors like Nick Nolte, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, and Ed Begley, Jr. protested the Lifetime Achievement Oscar that masterful director Kazan received. They sat on their hands, faces angry with rage, as Kazan took the stage to accept his award. They couldn’t forgive Kazan’s anti-Communist patriotism and his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities at the height of the Cold War.

In left-wing Hollywood’s eyes, Kazan’s magnificent films, "A Streetcar Named Desire," "East of Eden," and, ironically, "Gentleman’s Agreement" (an ahead of its time film decrying anti-Semitism) were irrelevant. His talent wasn’t as important as his naming names of members of the Communist Party – even though the Venona Papers revealed that those he named were in fact Communists working to overthrow the U.S.

No such outrage from the entertainment industry’s liberal elite for the Nazi filmmaker who glorified the genocide of six million Jews and the murder of five million others.

No actors sitting on their hands. Just lots of applause.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a strange version of exclusivity.

The Wall Street Journal, Friday, detailed comedian Rob Schneider’s failed repeat bids for membership in the Academy. While its membership includes that "fine actor", Martin Lawrence, and now honors a Nazi propagandist, the Oscar purveyor is too highbrow to accept the likes of Schneider, whose movies make whopping multi-millions.

The Academy "will find it easier to endorse you for membership once you’ve turned in a strong performance . . . that showcases additional strengths."

"What the hell was I thinking, wanting to join an organization like that, anyway?" Schneider asked. "My thanks to the remarkably distinguished committee of actors for considering me (Ed Begley, Jr.?)."

If only he’d taken some money from Goebbels and added a "Heil Hitler" to the "Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigolo" sequel he’s now filming.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Miscellaneous; Political Humor/Cartoons
KEYWORDS: academyaward; adolphhitler; agitprop; antiamerican; anticommunism; artisticfreedom; censorship; communism; communists; culturewar; debbieschlussel; doublestandard; eliakazan; hitler; hollyweirdleft; hollywooodcommunists; kazan; leniriefenstahl; lumpyriefenstahl; mccarthywasright; michaelmoore; oscar; oscarlovespropaganda; oscars; pc; politicallycorrect; prohitler; propaganda; prostalin; redmenace; riefenstahl
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Debbie Schlussel finally has her own website! Her most recent column is about Hollyweird Left's honoring a Nazi with a Lifetime Achievement Award. You know - Adolf Hitler's favorite filmmaker - Leni Riefenstahl. To its credit, even the ADL found it offensive. Mind you, this award is from the same people who took umbrage at the alleged anti-semitism of The Passion. And yes, the irony of their awarding an Oscar to a devotee of one of the ugliest totalitarian regimes of the 20th Century seems to escape their notice.
1 posted on 03/15/2004 1:49:27 AM PST by goldstategop
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To: goldstategop
Yeah, Riefenstahl wasn't a good person - she even used forced labourers in her film-projects, so I never believed her claims of "I was a naive tool used by the Nazis".

But forced labourers also worked on the construction site of the V2-rocket (which bombed London) where Wernher von Braun (also a Hitler-favourite for his skills) worked - and Wernher von Braun later got a big career working for NASA and the US-rocket-programs.

So perhaps: If you have outstanding skills, things might be forgotten? It ain't a fair world.
2 posted on 03/15/2004 2:02:19 AM PST by Berliner Baer
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To: Berliner Baer
The difference is Riefenstahl worked to make Nazism attractive to the world through the medium of film. Any one who has seen her signature masterpiece of propaganda, Triumph Of The Will, knows what I mean. There is no reason for the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences to extend recognition to what is at best a technical accomplishment. And that's without even considering the film's moral or political message. Its a good example of the moral relativism rot rampant among the Left today. In their view, the biggest sin is being judgmental, unless its being judgmental of modern conservatives.
3 posted on 03/15/2004 2:07:10 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop
Noone is Nazi Germany has any right to claim they didn't know what Hitler was going to do. He laid it all right out in Mein Kampf.
4 posted on 03/15/2004 2:13:23 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator
Today liberals claim Al Qaeda doesn't really hate America, they attacked us cause President Bush's policies turned the world against us. Like the President did anything to offend the rest of the world with American unilateralism before 9-11 is conveniently overlooked.
5 posted on 03/15/2004 2:18:37 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/
6 posted on 03/15/2004 2:23:41 AM PST by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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To: endthematrix
Oops... thanks for correcting the slip in my link. If Admin Mod is perusing this thread, kindly fix the link to the website for me, please. thanks.
7 posted on 03/15/2004 2:26:23 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop
"the biggest sin is being judgmental"

You are right on! What's next a Joseph Goebbels Public Speaker Award?

8 posted on 03/15/2004 2:33:36 AM PST by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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To: goldstategop
So, if we believe her spin, she was at best a craven individual who curried favor with an evil regime for her own benefit. Still not something to brag about.
9 posted on 03/15/2004 2:35:15 AM PST by nickcarraway
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To: endthematrix
Come to think of it, its very fitting. Today liberals will do just about anything to regain power - scruples be damned.
10 posted on 03/15/2004 2:35:20 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: nickcarraway
Well if they honored Sergei Eisenstein, what's the difference? Par for the course.
11 posted on 03/15/2004 2:36:01 AM PST by dfwgator
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To: nickcarraway
Nothing for Hollywood to crow about either - which shows how out of touch they are with the country.
12 posted on 03/15/2004 2:36:07 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

Abdul Qadeer Khan
Engineer of the Century? No. Try illicit technology transfer sleaze ball!
13 posted on 03/15/2004 2:59:56 AM PST by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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To: dfwgator
reply to: "No one is Nazi Germany has any right to claim they didn't know what Hitler was going to do. He laid it all right out in Mein Kampf."

That is true, but there is one comment by A. Hitler on record, where he claimed to another Nazi that: "some of the ideas in it are quite dated". However, exactly what he meant by that is subject to debate, and also whether he was accurately quoted correctly or not is also in question.

But he proved by his later actions, that yes indeed, he meant all of it, and he did later follow the book to the letter.

So, that is a rather trivial point, really. But I do believe that he backtracked just a bit, when the going did not look to good. Later, when it looked like he was going to get away with ALL of it, he went ahead with the original plan.
14 posted on 03/15/2004 3:05:17 AM PST by RonHolzwarth
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To: endthematrix
reply to: "What's next a Joseph Goebbels Public Speaker Award?"

I nominate Baghdad Bob!
15 posted on 03/15/2004 3:08:55 AM PST by RonHolzwarth
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To: nickcarraway; goldstategop

Hittler and yours truly

Sun Times excerpt review by Roger Ebert
""Triumph of the Will" (1934) was a film about the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, an event largely staged for the benefit of her camera, which showed a confident Hitler nodding approvingly as massed ranks of Nazi troops march in review. Three years later, she directed "Olympia," a documentary on the Berlin Olympiad.


These are by general consent two of the best documentaries ever made. But because they reflect the ideology of a monstrous movement, they pose a classic question of the contest between art and morality: Is there such a thing as pure art, or does all art make a political statement?


Riefenstahl is at pains to insist she was never a member of the Nazi Party. Her position has always been that she was an artist, working in a vacuum. The tragedy of her career, from her view, is that "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia" gained such fame, and were so closely identified with Nazism, that she was never able to finish another film. There were other documentaries about the Nazi rallies, but nobody remembers the others; only hers, because it was so good.


"The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl" is not convinced by her lifelong self-justification, and subjects her to strenuous on-camera questioning. She is unyielding. More than able at the age of 91 to defend herself, she has rehearsed over the years an elaborate explanation and justification for her behavior. There is no mention in her films of anti-Semitism, she points out. She did not know until after the war about Hitler's genocidal policies against the Jews. She was a naive artist, unsophisticated about politics, detached from Nazi party officials with the exception of Hitler, her friend - but not a close friend. She was concerned only with images, not ideas.


And so on. But it has been pointed out that the very absence of anti-Semitism in "Triumph of the Will" looks like a calculation; excluding the central motif of almost all of Hitler's public speeches must have been a deliberate decision to make the film more efficient as propaganda. Nor could it have been easy for a film professional working in Berlin to remain unaware of the disappearance of all of the Jews in the movie industry."

16 posted on 03/15/2004 3:25:47 AM PST by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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To: RonHolzwarth; goldstategop
Both showered with awards! Compare with the Hitler and Yours Truly. Can you tell the difference?
17 posted on 03/15/2004 3:39:49 AM PST by endthematrix (To enter my lane you must use your turn signal!)
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To: goldstategop
Certainly an eye-opening column!
18 posted on 03/15/2004 4:11:06 AM PST by sauropod (I intend to have Red Kerry choke on his past.)
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To: goldstategop; Yehuda; yonif; rdb3; mhking
"Your deeds exceed the power of human imagination. They are without equal in the history of mankind. How can we ever thank you?" (1940 telegram from Riefenstahl congratulating Hitler on conquering Paris)

As Susan Sontag (vile witch of postmodernism that she may be) pointed out, Riefenstahl continued to be obsessed about racial grandeur and purity after the war, as was demonstrated by her photography and film making in Africa.

By the way, the Masai are interesting, so it's hard to fault her too much for her pictures. It's just such a coincidence...

19 posted on 03/15/2004 5:07:06 AM PST by risk
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To: goldstategop
Her most recent column is about Hollyweird Left's honoring a Nazi with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

They did not do any such thing. All they did was acknowledge her passing, just as they do for everyone of name in the world of motion pictures that has passed on during the previous year.

As I said during the Official Oscars thread, instead of putting her name up, they should have simply said, "A Nazi." And no further comment is needed.

20 posted on 03/15/2004 5:46:07 AM PST by Houmatt (The FMA: For your children's future.)
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