Riefenstahl made two features for the Nazis, neither of which had any racialist or anti-Semitic content. Trimumph of the Will is a record of the 1934 Nuremberg rallies and Olympia is a record of the 1936 Olympics. I put her in the same group with Winnifred Wagner...someone with poor judgment who was seduced by Hitler’s personal magnetism. Swedish film director Ingmar Bergman was also taken with the Nazis as a young man. It all looked so shiny at first.
And btw she didn’t get any Oscars or accolades. But when she visited Hollywood in the late 1930s, the only studio head who would meet with her was Walt Disney. You could see the influence of her films on Bambi.
I would say that Riefenstahl was seduced by financing for her movies.
As for Winifred Wagner - a charming woman whom I met - you could not be more wrong. Yes, she was in love with Hitler, but she threatened the life of her own daughter, Friedelind, when Friedelind ran away to Switzerland to disassociate herself from the Nazis. As a result of the death threat, Friedelind left for England and spent the war in a camp for enemy aliens, while her family lived it up as favorites of the fuhrer. I know for a fact that until her dying day - decades after the end of the war - Frau Winifred kept a portrait of Hitler prominently displayed on her dressing table.