Page "Leni Riefenstahl" Paragraph 30

Writer Budd Schulberg, assigned by the US Navy to the OSS for intelligence work while attached to John Ford ’ s documentary unit, was ordered to arrest Riefenstahl at her chalet in Kitzbühel, Austria, ostensibly to have her identify the faces of Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by the Allied troops.

Riefenstahl claimed she was not aware of the nature of the internment camps.

According to Schulberg, “ She gave me the usual song and dance.

She said, ‘ Of course, you know, I'm really so misunderstood.

I'm not political .’” However, when Riefenstahl later claimed she had been forced to follow Goebbels ’ orders under threat of being sent to a concentration camp, Schulberg asked her why she should have been afraid if she did not know concentration camps existed.

When shown photographs of the camps, Riefenstahl reportedly reacted with horror and tears.