Hitler Filmmaker Riefenstahl Dies at 101

By Bob Mondello

Published September 9, 2003 at 12:00 AM EDT

German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, renowned and despised for chronicling Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Triumph of the Will, dies at age 101. The 1934 film has been called the best propaganda film ever made, but Riefenstahl insisted on being remembered as an artist, not a propagandist. NPR's Bob Mondello looks at the film's lasting influence.

Bob Mondello

Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.

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