1
00:00:02,360 --> 00:00:05,280
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

2
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:10,799
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. Some films stand the test of

3
00:00:10,840 --> 00:00:14,920
Speaker 1: time because they help shape our culture and inform our history,

4
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:20,400
Speaker 1: even if they make us profoundly uncomfortable. Filmmaker Lenny Reefinstall

5
00:00:20,520 --> 00:00:25,200
Speaker 1: occupies this strange space in cinema history as the director

6
00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:27,680
Speaker 1: of the Nazi propaganda film The Triumph of the Will.

7
00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:32,120
Speaker 1: Reef Install's legacy remains a mystery. My guests today are

8
00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:36,400
Speaker 1: filmmakers Andres Vile in Soandra Meisberger, who sought to examine

9
00:00:36,479 --> 00:00:41,360
Speaker 1: Lenny in their twenty twenty four documentary reef Install. Soandra

10
00:00:41,440 --> 00:00:45,680
Speaker 1: Meischberger is one of Germany's most prominent journalists, broadcasters and

11
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:50,519
Speaker 1: documentary producers. Best known as the longtime host of her

12
00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:54,960
Speaker 1: political talk show Meischberger. Soandra has spent decades interviewing world

13
00:00:55,080 --> 00:01:00,640
Speaker 1: leaders and cultural figures. In twenty eighteen, she recruited acclaimed

14
00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:05,560
Speaker 1: German filmmaker Andres Vile to direct the documentary on Lenny Riefenstahl.

15
00:01:06,160 --> 00:01:10,720
Speaker 1: Known for his explorations of history, politics, and moral complexity,

16
00:01:11,280 --> 00:01:16,320
Speaker 1: Vile's award winning films include Black Box, BRD Boys and

17
00:01:16,440 --> 00:01:20,920
Speaker 1: If Not Us, who both raised and educated in Germany.

18
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:24,160
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what their experiences were like growing

19
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,399
Speaker 1: up in post war Germany, particularly what their grade school

20
00:01:27,480 --> 00:01:29,920
Speaker 1: education on Nazi Germany looked like.

21
00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:34,200
Speaker 2: Well, we had a lot of teachers who were somehow

22
00:01:34,319 --> 00:01:40,280
Speaker 2: stuck in the Nazi time. So history lessons ended in

23
00:01:40,400 --> 00:01:45,479
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty five, nineteen thirty. Yeah, but then

24
00:01:45,640 --> 00:01:47,840
Speaker 2: there was a shift in the very end in the

25
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:50,440
Speaker 2: last years of school. In the two last years, we

26
00:01:50,520 --> 00:01:54,560
Speaker 2: had a young teacher, and he pushed us and gave

27
00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:59,200
Speaker 2: us some conscience about the concentration camps, about the Nazi past.

28
00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:04,280
Speaker 2: Of the older teachers. Yeah, actually they were all crippled.

29
00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:08,000
Speaker 2: There were really most of them had really traces of

30
00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:10,800
Speaker 2: the war. You could find in the body and in

31
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:15,000
Speaker 2: the soul. And for me it was like waking up

32
00:02:15,080 --> 00:02:19,440
Speaker 2: in a way. I started then questioning also my father

33
00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:22,800
Speaker 2: my mother a lot about the German past, how they

34
00:02:22,919 --> 00:02:26,680
Speaker 2: were involved, And suddenly the interest came up. It was

35
00:02:26,720 --> 00:02:29,400
Speaker 2: like an ignition for you, starting point for it.

36
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:31,880
Speaker 3: For me, Yeah, what did your parents tell you?

37
00:02:32,400 --> 00:02:35,800
Speaker 2: It was really a challenge because I got two different stories.

38
00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:39,519
Speaker 2: My mother was very conscious about everything what happened. She

39
00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:44,080
Speaker 2: grew up in a house of Jews, so she experienced

40
00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:48,760
Speaker 2: the discrimination, the violence from the very beginning. And my

41
00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:51,720
Speaker 2: father had the same way to school and he said, no,

42
00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:55,720
Speaker 2: nothing happened in this little town. You take it from

43
00:02:55,760 --> 00:03:00,120
Speaker 2: another experience, maybe from films. So he was ignoring or

44
00:03:00,160 --> 00:03:03,000
Speaker 2: even well, I don't think he lied, but he has

45
00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:06,720
Speaker 2: had a totally different conscience of what happened, and he

46
00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:10,880
Speaker 2: had somehow to repress a lot. And at the age

47
00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:15,640
Speaker 2: of seventeen or eighteen, I discovered, okay, history, it's not

48
00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:20,799
Speaker 2: a fact story. It's a story very individually told by

49
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:26,680
Speaker 2: different aspects, and the necessity to repress memories who are painful,

50
00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:30,480
Speaker 2: who are somehow connected to guild. This was a starting

51
00:03:30,560 --> 00:03:33,760
Speaker 2: point to become a psychologist because I thought, okay, it

52
00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:37,440
Speaker 2: has a lot to do with not only facts, it

53
00:03:37,480 --> 00:03:40,960
Speaker 2: has a lot to do about the past, the necessities

54
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,960
Speaker 2: to repress, and well, the unconsciousness.

55
00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:47,800
Speaker 1: Sandra, same for you, whether it be in Italy or

56
00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:52,120
Speaker 1: in Munich. How did your parents or your teachers express

57
00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:55,280
Speaker 1: the Nazi past and the Nazi history to you?

58
00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:59,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm slightly younger than Andre's, so in my school

59
00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:03,120
Speaker 4: time we did have the talk about the Holocaust. For sure,

60
00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:06,600
Speaker 4: and the nearby my hometown, which is in the north

61
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,880
Speaker 4: of Munich, there is cut the concentration camp of Dakhau.

62
00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,680
Speaker 4: So you would go there as a pupil in school,

63
00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:16,320
Speaker 4: you would be taken there. You would go there, but

64
00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:19,320
Speaker 4: it was kind of abstract because I remember that the

65
00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:23,039
Speaker 4: first Jew, the first living Jew I met, was when

66
00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:27,240
Speaker 4: I was twenty. Until then, nobody would come forward in

67
00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:29,640
Speaker 4: our class in our school, and there also it was

68
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:32,760
Speaker 4: a huge school, one thousand and five undred pupil going there.

69
00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:35,400
Speaker 4: Nobody would come forward and tell, you know, I'm a Jew,

70
00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:38,760
Speaker 4: so that came later, so in a way it was

71
00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:42,719
Speaker 4: part of our school teaching, but it was nothing you

72
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,760
Speaker 4: would talk about. And I remember clearly that the first

73
00:04:45,839 --> 00:04:49,760
Speaker 4: really emotional impact after Dakhao, which is they do a

74
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:53,360
Speaker 4: very good exhibition, you know, but I know that emotionally

75
00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:58,240
Speaker 4: the Holocaust really got me with an American serial Holocaust.

76
00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:01,680
Speaker 4: So that was aired in many in the eighties, so

77
00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:05,000
Speaker 4: and I remember clearly that that was the first time

78
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:09,360
Speaker 4: that I really got emotionally into it. And then we

79
00:05:09,440 --> 00:05:12,360
Speaker 4: read Underfronk. Of course that was the tail over a

80
00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:16,040
Speaker 4: schoolgirl as someone who was our age, and that was

81
00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:19,720
Speaker 4: that was the first time where we really really started

82
00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:24,159
Speaker 4: to think ourselves about the story. And our teachers wouldn't

83
00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:27,280
Speaker 4: be connected to the Third Riich in a way. They

84
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 4: were younger, so we didn't have those who had the experience.

85
00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:33,960
Speaker 4: In my family was divided. We had a part of

86
00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:37,480
Speaker 4: the family at Rhine they would help prisoners of wars

87
00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:42,600
Speaker 4: Russian who were in a camp nearby, and so they

88
00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:45,039
Speaker 4: were anti Nazi, and the part of the family of

89
00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:49,600
Speaker 4: my father they were clearly Nazis, and they stuck with

90
00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:51,359
Speaker 4: the ideology for.

91
00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:52,159
Speaker 5: The whole life.

92
00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:56,039
Speaker 4: But they wouldn't come forward to tell They would kind

93
00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:58,360
Speaker 4: of hide it, but it was clear that they thought

94
00:05:58,400 --> 00:06:01,360
Speaker 4: that was the best time of Germany in their part,

95
00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:02,559
Speaker 4: in their point of view.

96
00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:06,600
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, of course Americans. You mentioned the television

97
00:06:06,680 --> 00:06:10,839
Speaker 1: series Holocaust in this country, and of course Americans never

98
00:06:10,880 --> 00:06:15,280
Speaker 1: miss an opportunity to moralize about what's happened around the world,

99
00:06:15,400 --> 00:06:18,400
Speaker 1: you know, in Nazi Germany and so forth, and choose

100
00:06:18,480 --> 00:06:23,000
Speaker 1: conveniently to sidestep any meaningful discussion of what they've done.

101
00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:24,680
Speaker 1: You know, you're never going to I mean, there are

102
00:06:24,839 --> 00:06:29,599
Speaker 1: fabulous programs about the Vietnam War, which and I always

103
00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,160
Speaker 1: set aside that the troops. I set aside the soldiers

104
00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:36,000
Speaker 1: who were ordered to do these things, but the Defense Department,

105
00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:40,640
Speaker 1: the White House, the CIA, all the institutions involved in

106
00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:43,479
Speaker 1: that decision, which we knew was a horrible decision eleven

107
00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:46,760
Speaker 1: years before it was over. We pressed on eleven years

108
00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:48,680
Speaker 1: after we knew the Pentagon papers and the whole thing

109
00:06:48,720 --> 00:06:50,800
Speaker 1: was a mess. The whole thing was a waste of time.

110
00:06:50,839 --> 00:06:53,480
Speaker 1: We were never going to achieve our goals. And then America,

111
00:06:53,640 --> 00:06:55,120
Speaker 1: they hardly ever teach any of that in the schools

112
00:06:55,120 --> 00:06:57,320
Speaker 1: here in this country ever. To look back at how

113
00:06:57,880 --> 00:06:59,360
Speaker 1: the military was was wrong.

114
00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:00,640
Speaker 3: For the two of you.

115
00:07:01,279 --> 00:07:02,960
Speaker 1: I want to go to ardists for am it and say,

116
00:07:03,240 --> 00:07:06,440
Speaker 1: both of you have these really serious careers. Sandra's a

117
00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:09,040
Speaker 1: journalist and does all these shows and you know her

118
00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:13,160
Speaker 1: namesake show, and she's doing everything writing and interviewing people

119
00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:16,680
Speaker 1: on TV and shows on television. And you Wanders, are

120
00:07:16,680 --> 00:07:19,320
Speaker 1: making lots of films. You made a lot of films.

121
00:07:19,920 --> 00:07:22,240
Speaker 1: And I was wondering when this film because I want

122
00:07:22,240 --> 00:07:23,520
Speaker 1: to ask you about some of your other films in

123
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:26,160
Speaker 1: a moment, but when this film comes together, she was

124
00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:27,440
Speaker 1: the producer who approached you.

125
00:07:27,520 --> 00:07:31,120
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, Sandra asked me yeah.

126
00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:32,480
Speaker 3: And what was it that made you say yes?

127
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:36,280
Speaker 2: I tell you frankly, in the beginning, I was reluctant

128
00:07:36,560 --> 00:07:40,200
Speaker 2: because the estate was huge. For sure, we already knew

129
00:07:40,280 --> 00:07:44,679
Speaker 2: seven hundred boxes, and we didn't know what about the

130
00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:47,200
Speaker 2: treasure box. Is it a treasure box or is it

131
00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:52,440
Speaker 2: just a big heap of lies and manipulation. So I

132
00:07:52,480 --> 00:07:55,800
Speaker 2: had to get seduceed and we had Sandra paid very

133
00:07:55,800 --> 00:08:00,560
Speaker 2: good archive researchers, and they presented some of the findings

134
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:07,520
Speaker 2: like private films, like insight into diaries, personal notes, a

135
00:08:07,560 --> 00:08:11,520
Speaker 2: lot of photos I have never seen before, and so

136
00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:15,080
Speaker 2: I felt there are two questions. First of all, we

137
00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:18,440
Speaker 2: could get closer. We could create some sort of close

138
00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,720
Speaker 2: up of Linnie Riefenstein with all this footage. That was

139
00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:26,200
Speaker 2: the first seducing moment. And the second was Sundra and

140
00:08:26,280 --> 00:08:30,200
Speaker 2: I we were always talking about what does she mean

141
00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:34,800
Speaker 2: for today? And the deeper we went into the huge

142
00:08:35,160 --> 00:08:39,240
Speaker 2: amount of findings, we realized it has a lot to do.

143
00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:43,360
Speaker 2: It's so current, so many questions are current. So it

144
00:08:43,520 --> 00:08:48,520
Speaker 2: won't be just a film on a very well controversial

145
00:08:48,640 --> 00:08:52,400
Speaker 2: filmmaker of the Nazi period. It will be a film

146
00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:56,760
Speaker 2: about all the current issues. We have to deal today

147
00:08:56,840 --> 00:09:01,040
Speaker 2: with the question the separation of we and them. So

148
00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:06,000
Speaker 2: the supremacy is superiority of a specific group because of

149
00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:10,120
Speaker 2: a nation, because of nationalism, because of a race, or whatever.

150
00:09:10,440 --> 00:09:13,920
Speaker 2: And we experienced it in Germany, we experienced the rise

151
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,880
Speaker 2: of the far right in many other countries. We don't

152
00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:19,720
Speaker 2: have to look to Russia or to China or to

153
00:09:19,840 --> 00:09:23,840
Speaker 2: North Korea. It's also an issue question in the US,

154
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:27,959
Speaker 2: and so the necessity to make this film was pushed

155
00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:31,520
Speaker 2: really a lot. Why because of the second question.

156
00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:34,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with Andrews from me if in the

157
00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:37,040
Speaker 4: beginning it was a personal thing because I did an

158
00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:40,720
Speaker 4: interview with Lenny Riefenstahl around the year two thousand two,

159
00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:44,480
Speaker 4: when she was almost one hundred years, around her one

160
00:09:44,559 --> 00:09:47,880
Speaker 4: hundredth birthday, And so I got to her house and

161
00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:51,080
Speaker 4: I spent two and a half days interviewing her, and

162
00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:53,520
Speaker 4: I left this house and I knew clearly she was

163
00:09:53,640 --> 00:09:56,600
Speaker 4: lying to me, but it was so difficult to, you know,

164
00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:00,160
Speaker 4: get to the core of the lie. Why was she lying?

165
00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:02,760
Speaker 4: Where was she lying? Was she lying to me or

166
00:10:02,760 --> 00:10:05,840
Speaker 4: had she been lying to herself all the lifetime? And

167
00:10:05,880 --> 00:10:09,840
Speaker 4: there was a long life denying what she did what

168
00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:12,720
Speaker 4: kind of role she played in this period of time,

169
00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:17,880
Speaker 4: And so I stuck around with more question marks than answers.

170
00:10:17,920 --> 00:10:21,120
Speaker 4: And when I finally got the chance to after the

171
00:10:21,160 --> 00:10:25,280
Speaker 4: death of her husband, to get an access to the estate,

172
00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:28,880
Speaker 4: I got after it, hopefully finding the answers I was

173
00:10:28,920 --> 00:10:31,560
Speaker 4: looking for. So in the beginning it was a personal quest,

174
00:10:32,120 --> 00:10:35,040
Speaker 4: and then it began to be more than that, because

175
00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:38,800
Speaker 4: there is so much more to know about this personality.

176
00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:42,520
Speaker 4: It's not about one biography. It's about it's clearly about

177
00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:46,440
Speaker 4: a whole system of life. It's clearly about fascism, it's

178
00:10:46,440 --> 00:10:50,040
Speaker 4: about the mechanism of propaganda. So there's so many things

179
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:53,080
Speaker 4: which are much more than just doing a film about

180
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:56,320
Speaker 4: Lenny Riefenstadt. That wouldn't have been enough for us. What

181
00:10:56,360 --> 00:10:59,080
Speaker 4: there was the necessity, as Andre said, to do it

182
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:02,680
Speaker 4: in a way so we know something about our present

183
00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:06,200
Speaker 4: time and maybe get a glimpse of what could be

184
00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 4: a future if we're not aware of what happened in

185
00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:10,000
Speaker 4: the past.

186
00:11:10,280 --> 00:11:14,160
Speaker 1: Describe to me your relationship with Refinstahl's family. First of all,

187
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:17,920
Speaker 1: who told you about the trove of all this personal

188
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:20,520
Speaker 1: items of verse that you went to them and had

189
00:11:20,559 --> 00:11:22,440
Speaker 1: heard it was there or they told you it was there.

190
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:23,959
Speaker 1: How did you get onto that whole thing?

191
00:11:24,400 --> 00:11:26,560
Speaker 4: It was because I was asked to do the interview,

192
00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:28,760
Speaker 4: and the producer who asked me was the same one

193
00:11:28,760 --> 00:11:31,360
Speaker 4: who did the other film in the nineties, which was

194
00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:34,400
Speaker 4: a brilliant film at this time, the Wonderful Horrible Life

195
00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,960
Speaker 4: of Lenny Rifinstahal, And so he asked me if I

196
00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:40,560
Speaker 4: was interested in doing the interview. So this is my

197
00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:43,679
Speaker 4: whole connection to the Refin Style family. There is no

198
00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:48,040
Speaker 4: such Refin Style family today because she didn't have any children.

199
00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:51,400
Speaker 4: She had a brother. There is some people still alive

200
00:11:51,720 --> 00:11:55,000
Speaker 4: from this part of family, but the Reef style family

201
00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:59,280
Speaker 4: is not really present thing here now. It was purely

202
00:11:59,440 --> 00:12:02,600
Speaker 4: a journal take interest in getting there. So there's no

203
00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:03,840
Speaker 4: connection whatsoever.

204
00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:08,079
Speaker 1: Now, why did you feel you wanted to explore deeper

205
00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:13,760
Speaker 1: into if it's a general consensus among historians and writers

206
00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:17,240
Speaker 1: in Europe, in Germany, around the world that she's a liar,

207
00:12:17,600 --> 00:12:20,400
Speaker 1: that she was a chronic liar who wanted to mask

208
00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:22,920
Speaker 1: the depth of a relationship with Hitler and the Nazis

209
00:12:22,960 --> 00:12:25,360
Speaker 1: and so forth. The flowers she gets on her birthday

210
00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:29,080
Speaker 1: from Hitler, Hitler does that for everybody he sent me flowers.

211
00:12:29,080 --> 00:12:31,520
Speaker 1: It's nothing Hitler send flowers to all the people in

212
00:12:31,559 --> 00:12:34,840
Speaker 1: the German media. But anyway, what was it about? You

213
00:12:34,920 --> 00:12:37,400
Speaker 1: felt this needed another examination.

214
00:12:37,480 --> 00:12:40,440
Speaker 4: Because you see, growing up then as a German, you

215
00:12:40,559 --> 00:12:44,480
Speaker 4: always ask yourself, how could this have happened? How could

216
00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:48,440
Speaker 4: we go that wrong? Why did the people you know

217
00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:51,679
Speaker 4: not stop Hitler when they could have stopped him? And

218
00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:53,880
Speaker 4: that breaks you back to the question what would you

219
00:12:53,920 --> 00:12:56,800
Speaker 4: do in the same situation? What would you do if

220
00:12:56,840 --> 00:13:00,560
Speaker 4: you are being offered all the possibilities that you know,

221
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:04,680
Speaker 4: a dictator offers you as an artist, for example, what

222
00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:08,200
Speaker 4: would you do? And my question was always how much

223
00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:10,120
Speaker 4: of Lenny Refinstali is in myself?

224
00:13:10,200 --> 00:13:13,160
Speaker 5: In my character? Would I be able to be seduced?

225
00:13:13,200 --> 00:13:13,440
Speaker 4: You know?

226
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,199
Speaker 5: And that's a very present question. And this is what

227
00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:17,120
Speaker 5: you know.

228
00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:19,080
Speaker 4: When I wake up at night and I see what's

229
00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:23,080
Speaker 4: happening in the world, I always ask myself, how can

230
00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:25,720
Speaker 4: we prevent to go wrong? And this is the one

231
00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:29,080
Speaker 4: question that took me deeper into her biography because I

232
00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:31,480
Speaker 4: felt it didn't have something to do with her, It

233
00:13:31,559 --> 00:13:32,959
Speaker 4: had something to do with us.

234
00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:34,000
Speaker 5: And yes, we are.

235
00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:37,120
Speaker 4: All lying, We all deny what we don't want to

236
00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:40,760
Speaker 4: be aware of in our past. So there is so

237
00:13:40,880 --> 00:13:43,760
Speaker 4: much to learn about us, and that was really what

238
00:13:43,840 --> 00:13:46,960
Speaker 4: I wanted to go into, besides the history of Germany.

239
00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:49,800
Speaker 2: Of course, Yeah, to add something you might know, I'm

240
00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:53,760
Speaker 2: a psychologist. I studied psychology, so I'm of course interested

241
00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:57,120
Speaker 2: to use her in a way as a role model

242
00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:00,720
Speaker 2: or even as a prototype of fascism. To look closer.

243
00:14:00,840 --> 00:14:06,199
Speaker 2: And so two questions came up diving into all the findings.

244
00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:11,520
Speaker 2: First of all, I asked myself the moral issue. She's lying,

245
00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:14,400
Speaker 2: Yes she is, and we know it. She's opening her

246
00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:17,880
Speaker 2: mouth and she lies. But the moral question is not

247
00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:20,920
Speaker 2: so important. It's much more interesting why she had to lie?

248
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:23,200
Speaker 2: What is the background, or you could tell it like

249
00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:26,760
Speaker 2: the rules of manipulation, fake news and lies. And when

250
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 2: you look into her biography, we had one finding, one

251
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,120
Speaker 2: point of crucial moment in our research. That was the

252
00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:37,080
Speaker 2: letter of the adjutant. I have to explain it in

253
00:14:37,200 --> 00:14:41,520
Speaker 2: two sentences. She was a war correspondent in Poland and

254
00:14:41,800 --> 00:14:45,040
Speaker 2: she was an eyewitness. She was a witness of the

255
00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:49,920
Speaker 2: first massacre of twenty two Jews in Poland by German troops.

256
00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,280
Speaker 2: But this letter tells another story. He tells something like

257
00:14:54,360 --> 00:14:58,200
Speaker 2: she gave a stage direction. She wanted to shoot a

258
00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:02,680
Speaker 2: film the courageous German soldiers and not Jews who were

259
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:06,240
Speaker 2: digging a grave for soldiers that were killed the night before.

260
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:09,760
Speaker 2: So she said, Jews off, and suddenly she became a

261
00:15:09,760 --> 00:15:14,120
Speaker 2: catalyst of the massacre. Why because the German soldiers, they

262
00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:17,680
Speaker 2: were aggressive, they pushed the Jews to get off, and

263
00:15:18,080 --> 00:15:21,840
Speaker 2: they panicked, and suddenly a soldiers shot, and then many

264
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:25,160
Speaker 2: soldiers shot, and at the end twenty two Jews were killed.

265
00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,200
Speaker 2: So the question of guilt, or the charge of her

266
00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:32,480
Speaker 2: guilt taking this is a very good example, is maybe

267
00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:36,400
Speaker 2: she's much more involved in the charge of a guilt,

268
00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:39,920
Speaker 2: meaning she was a catalyst of the massacre. And this

269
00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:42,880
Speaker 2: is a very good example to go deeper, not just

270
00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:46,800
Speaker 2: to tell again she is manipulative, she is a liar.

271
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 2: Why she had to lie, because the amount of guilt,

272
00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:55,360
Speaker 2: the amount of responsibility for the first massacre, you can

273
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:58,840
Speaker 2: even say the start of the Holocaust, she was a

274
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:01,720
Speaker 2: catalyst of it. And this is a very interesting point

275
00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:05,320
Speaker 2: for me because then I understand if the guilt is

276
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,920
Speaker 2: so heavy, the load of guilt, she had to repress

277
00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:11,640
Speaker 2: it and in the very end. She always said, after

278
00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:15,040
Speaker 2: the war, I learned about the autrocities of the Holocaust,

279
00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:18,240
Speaker 2: but not before. She was an eyewitness and she was

280
00:16:18,280 --> 00:16:21,400
Speaker 2: a catalyst of a verse massacre. So for me, it

281
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:24,840
Speaker 2: was always the idea to use the archive, to use

282
00:16:24,880 --> 00:16:28,600
Speaker 2: the estate for a close up, to get closer to her,

283
00:16:28,680 --> 00:16:32,920
Speaker 2: to understand, not to exonerate her, not to apologize or

284
00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:37,320
Speaker 2: to excuse her responsibility, no, on the contrary, but to

285
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:40,640
Speaker 2: show also why she became what she was in the

286
00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 2: very end prototype of fascism.

287
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:47,920
Speaker 1: Now, is it possible to track Riefenstahl's reputation over the

288
00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:51,680
Speaker 1: post war years because she could have gone away, and

289
00:16:51,720 --> 00:16:55,040
Speaker 1: she could have just vanished from the public spotlight. She

290
00:16:55,040 --> 00:16:57,840
Speaker 1: could have moved to any number of places, to Paris.

291
00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:00,320
Speaker 1: You know, it seems like everyone that's running away goes

292
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:03,920
Speaker 1: to Paris and there's a decent life there. But is

293
00:17:03,960 --> 00:17:07,240
Speaker 1: it smart to say? Is it correct to say that

294
00:17:07,320 --> 00:17:11,040
Speaker 1: after the war she's not always a pariah, She's not

295
00:17:11,080 --> 00:17:14,240
Speaker 1: always an outcast and viewed as a Nazi sympathizer. Did

296
00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:16,919
Speaker 1: she have a period where people were accepting her and

297
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:20,480
Speaker 1: believing her. Was her pressed different during some run of time?

298
00:17:21,080 --> 00:17:23,520
Speaker 1: Did it undulate up and down between good and bad,

299
00:17:23,600 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 1: good and bad over the many years after the war.

300
00:17:26,200 --> 00:17:28,679
Speaker 4: Well, it depends where you're looking at. There there was

301
00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:33,320
Speaker 4: always a core of hardcore Nazis around her, people who

302
00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:37,280
Speaker 4: survived the system and who were not prosecuted in the

303
00:17:37,359 --> 00:17:40,800
Speaker 4: Nuremberg trial. There were so many. There were people you know,

304
00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:44,800
Speaker 4: in the legal system, in the politics, in everywhere in life.

305
00:17:44,880 --> 00:17:48,040
Speaker 4: And what they tried to do, like Lenny Rifinstel, was

306
00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:52,120
Speaker 4: somehow to you know, gain their lives back and survive

307
00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:55,080
Speaker 4: in Germany. So she was a German, she was a

308
00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:57,800
Speaker 4: German director. She tried to be in you know, succeed

309
00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:01,280
Speaker 4: in the United States before, in in the thirties, and

310
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:04,879
Speaker 4: she didn't. So clearly for her there was no option.

311
00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:07,880
Speaker 4: She was not rich enough to just you know make

312
00:18:07,920 --> 00:18:10,320
Speaker 4: a living out of what she earned before. So she

313
00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:13,240
Speaker 4: had to start again to you know, be what she

314
00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:15,880
Speaker 4: was before. And then I think it was for her

315
00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:20,560
Speaker 4: even very personal thing to get back to the admiration

316
00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:24,240
Speaker 4: she once had felt she was a star in Nazi Germany,

317
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:26,199
Speaker 4: so she wanted to be a star again. This is

318
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:29,159
Speaker 4: what I think about her, And so she started a

319
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:33,120
Speaker 4: fight to get back on you know stage and get

320
00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:36,080
Speaker 4: back to the hearts of the German audience. So in

321
00:18:36,119 --> 00:18:39,560
Speaker 4: the beginning she was a parier, but not for all

322
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:43,840
Speaker 4: in Germany, but on the surface, yes. And then it

323
00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:47,640
Speaker 4: was the Nuba photos she did that brought her back

324
00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:50,600
Speaker 4: to the audience, to the attention of the audience, and

325
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:53,679
Speaker 4: that brought her back to be a star. It's a

326
00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:58,600
Speaker 4: book full of close ups of a native African tribes

327
00:18:58,840 --> 00:19:02,639
Speaker 4: in Sudan that were not touched by civilization when she

328
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:06,240
Speaker 4: first met them. She took those pictures and that brought

329
00:19:06,280 --> 00:19:08,800
Speaker 4: her back to the attention. And then she didn't want

330
00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:11,760
Speaker 4: to leave because she said, okay, here I am, I'm back.

331
00:19:11,800 --> 00:19:15,320
Speaker 4: Everybody loves me, and finally she got her life back

332
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:17,360
Speaker 4: and all the admiration she.

333
00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:18,320
Speaker 5: Was longing for.

334
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:21,040
Speaker 4: Andres tell us something about the book.

335
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:24,000
Speaker 2: Well, when you look at the photos, first of all,

336
00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:29,000
Speaker 2: it's they're very esthetics. They're very similar to Olympia and

337
00:19:29,119 --> 00:19:32,879
Speaker 2: Triumph of the Will. Why again, it's the celebration of

338
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:36,160
Speaker 2: the strongness of the beauty and as of the victorious.

339
00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:39,919
Speaker 2: There hardly no people who are sick, who are old,

340
00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:44,320
Speaker 2: or who are failing. And she always thought, I escape,

341
00:19:44,400 --> 00:19:48,040
Speaker 2: I do photos now with so called black Nuba tribe

342
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:52,520
Speaker 2: and nobody can reproach me from being stuck in the

343
00:19:52,640 --> 00:19:58,040
Speaker 2: Nazi ideology. But the esthetics were so there's such an

344
00:19:58,080 --> 00:20:02,040
Speaker 2: affinity between in Pire and the triumph of the bill

345
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:04,480
Speaker 2: on the one side, and the other side are the

346
00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:07,560
Speaker 2: coffee table books and sex cells. Of course, there's a

347
00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:12,000
Speaker 2: lot of nakedness on the pictures, bare breasts, etc. So

348
00:20:12,119 --> 00:20:15,960
Speaker 2: she knew that's something she could sell very well. And

349
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:19,080
Speaker 2: when you compare it, there was another photographer, George Rochon,

350
00:20:19,160 --> 00:20:22,000
Speaker 2: who was a little bit earlier at the same tribe,

351
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,119
Speaker 2: and he did also very good photos, but he sold

352
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:31,119
Speaker 2: five thousands and she sold five hundred thousand copies. Why

353
00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:35,120
Speaker 2: because she was very ingenious. She always combined the interviews.

354
00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:37,600
Speaker 2: She always said, I don't speak about politics, I don't

355
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,600
Speaker 2: speak about Hitler. But after fifteen minutes the interviewer asked her,

356
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:44,880
Speaker 2: may ask just one question. She got upset, but then

357
00:20:44,920 --> 00:20:47,800
Speaker 2: she was talking one hour about her relationship to Hitler

358
00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:50,960
Speaker 2: and that was a unique selling point that made the

359
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 2: book so successful.

360
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:54,000
Speaker 3: Wow, that's interesting.

361
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:57,560
Speaker 1: To sell the book, Nuba, she would acquiesce and throw

362
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:01,199
Speaker 1: a couple Hitler anecdotes on the table or during the interview.

363
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:01,880
Speaker 3: That's amazing.

364
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:05,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that was the unique selling point, and she

365
00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:08,560
Speaker 2: knew to sell her. She was really excellent. She was

366
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 2: an Instagram girl in a way. She always combined it

367
00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:15,639
Speaker 2: with personal stories and that's something that people want to

368
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:16,119
Speaker 2: listen to.

369
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:19,600
Speaker 4: Helmut Newton wanted, you know, she wanted so badly to

370
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:23,280
Speaker 4: take pictures of her. Helmut Newton the survivor of the

371
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,400
Speaker 4: massacre of the Holocaust, and he said, you would sell

372
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 4: his grandmother if he would be able to work with

373
00:21:29,119 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 4: Lenny Riefenstau. So there was this appeal, you know, the

374
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:37,200
Speaker 4: attraction of the devil always with her in everything she did.

375
00:21:37,640 --> 00:21:40,560
Speaker 2: Even in the US. She got a lot of support

376
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 2: by Coppola, by Andy Wauhol, They all celebrated her as

377
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 2: even Tarantino said she's the greatest artist ever, film artist, filmmaker.

378
00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:56,720
Speaker 2: So the separation from politics and esthetics is impossible.

379
00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:00,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just set aside that whole concentration camp and

380
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:01,600
Speaker 1: let's sell some books.

381
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:04,440
Speaker 3: Here a beautiful African people. It's incredible.

382
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: But now let me ask you this, who was Reefenstahl,

383
00:22:07,960 --> 00:22:10,399
Speaker 1: meaning she was a woman, as a young woman, she

384
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 1: was very young.

385
00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:14,159
Speaker 3: When she gets into the fold with the Nazis correct.

386
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, well she was when you think about she was

387
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 2: something like thirty, so she was not adolescent. For me,

388
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 2: as a psychologist, I always I'm interested in the childhood.

389
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 2: That's very natural.

390
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 3: And what do you have there?

391
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:31,680
Speaker 2: Well, what I found were notes, drafted notes of her memoirs,

392
00:22:31,920 --> 00:22:35,320
Speaker 2: not printed. And the interesting point was for me, like

393
00:22:35,359 --> 00:22:38,919
Speaker 2: an episode or anecdote. She was writing in the drafts

394
00:22:38,960 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 2: of her memoirs about an experience she had to learn

395
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 2: how to swim, and her father threw her into the

396
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:50,399
Speaker 2: water and she was close to drown and she survived.

397
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 2: And the conclusion was not I had an aggressive, dangerous father. No,

398
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 2: the conclusion was I became a good swimmer. And that's

399
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,159
Speaker 2: something like a core situation for me. Why because she

400
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 2: had identify with the aggression to survive, she had to

401
00:23:07,080 --> 00:23:13,159
Speaker 2: identify with the superior, with the victorious moments, and at

402
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 2: the same time to contempt the weakness, because being weak

403
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 2: means get killed, get drowned. That's something like when I

404
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:24,159
Speaker 2: call her a prototype of fascism. Fascism didn't start in

405
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,080
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty three and when she met Hitler a year

406
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:31,440
Speaker 2: before her. Fascism starts much earlier. By this brutal Prussian

407
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 2: style education. And in a way you can see later

408
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:38,960
Speaker 2: or twenty years later, when she met all these guys

409
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 2: from the Second World War, the fighters, the veterans, it's

410
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 2: the same attitude. When you think of the letter of

411
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:49,919
Speaker 2: Udet the pilot. He said, we came out of the

412
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 2: ashes of the First World War and we became even

413
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:57,359
Speaker 2: stronger because of everything what we had to experience there,

414
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 2: and that was a good preparation to assemble under the flag.

415
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:02,159
Speaker 3: Of the funeral.

416
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:07,119
Speaker 2: And there you have the direct line from this attitude,

417
00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 2: from the ideology being strong, being healthy, being better than,

418
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 2: and the contempt for the weakness. And that was her

419
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 2: second lesson. So meeting Hitler, she was prepared. She was

420
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,760
Speaker 2: well prepared. Fascism started in her life when she was

421
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 2: five years old, and so Hitler was just in German.

422
00:24:26,640 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 2: We have a funny expression, the kushier of dasa anatot

423
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 2: and it meets the cherry on the cream cheese. You know.

424
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: It was the last point for her to get involved,

425
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 2: and he offered her a career and he'd asked her

426
00:24:40,480 --> 00:24:42,959
Speaker 2: you or even back to her, you have to do

427
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 2: our films. And we had a good intuition she was

428
00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 2: the right person for it, but she had to be prepared,

429
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,480
Speaker 2: and she had to be prepared also for lies and manipulation.

430
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 2: It was also a story in the childhood. Think of

431
00:24:56,359 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 2: the chocolate. She stole the chocolate. Her father was being

432
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:02,480
Speaker 2: her up and she was put in the closet for

433
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,360
Speaker 2: twelve hours, and she said, no, I didn't steal the chocolate.

434
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 2: She knew she did, but she wanted to tell my

435
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,480
Speaker 2: father was not right beating me up. So she lied

436
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:15,640
Speaker 2: as a little girl of ten or eleven years old.

437
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: So this is the pattern and it continues.

438
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 3: We admit nothing contrary to the evidence. You admit nothing.

439
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the pattern. And for me it was

440
00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 2: interesting to see what are the roots of it, not

441
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 2: just the superficial how she's lying. She is manipulative, she

442
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:38,280
Speaker 2: made propaganda. We have to look what are the necessities behind,

443
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,320
Speaker 2: and then we can understand maybe what we can do

444
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 2: in early years to prevent people to become fascists.

445
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: Documentary filmmakers Aunt was Vile and Sandra Weisberger. If you

446
00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,679
Speaker 1: enjoy conversations with documentary filmmakers whose work focuses on crime

447
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: and social issues, check out my episode with Joe Berlinger, I.

448
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:06,680
Speaker 6: Mean, there's something wrong with our legal system where this

449
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 6: is what it takes to get somebody out of prison,

450
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 6: and why don't they have that kind of defense Right

451
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 6: from the get go. You have three guys who are

452
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 6: wrongfully convicted, spent their entire adult life up till now

453
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 6: in prison for a crime they didn't commit, and the

454
00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 6: State of Arkansas is making them plead guilty so that

455
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,040
Speaker 6: A they won't be sued for wrongful convicted, so they're

456
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 6: not going to get any compensation exactly, and B that

457
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 6: means the State of Arkansas is not looking for the

458
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 6: real killers.

459
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Joe Berlinger, go

460
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Sondra

461
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: talks about interviewing Lennyriefenstraul in two thousand and two and

462
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: why that interview was not included in the twenty twenty

463
00:26:48,200 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: four documentary I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here.

464
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 3: Here's the Thing.

465
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: Sandra Meischberger first had the idea to make a documentary

466
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:08,440
Speaker 1: about Lenny Reefenstahl after interviewing her in two thousand and two.

467
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: It wasn't until twenty eighteen that Andres Weil and his

468
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: team of editors joined the project. The film was eventually

469
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:20,159
Speaker 1: completed in twenty twenty four after an editing period of

470
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: only eighteen months. I wanted to know more about the

471
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:26,919
Speaker 1: film's development process and whether or not there is public

472
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: support and German government funding for documentaries about Nazi Germany.

473
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 4: Well, it is not the government himself, but we have

474
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 4: a federal system of funding.

475
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 5: So you go to different funders.

476
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 4: And they are not government owned and the money comes

477
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 4: from the government, but they are independent.

478
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:47,760
Speaker 5: That's really important.

479
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 4: The government does not have means to control what is

480
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 4: done autistically. This is one of the lessons we had

481
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 4: from the Third Reich, because never again we should allow

482
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:03,439
Speaker 4: a government to control what artists are doing, whether they

483
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 4: are filmmakers, writers or whatever, or even the television is

484
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 4: not government owned. That's very important. But in the beginning

485
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:13,160
Speaker 4: it was difficult because we were amidst I would say,

486
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 4: the peak of the cancer culture. So the funders, the

487
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,040
Speaker 4: people we were applying for funds, they would say, don't

488
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 4: let us spend money on an RTZI star. We had

489
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 4: enough of Lenny Riffinstahl. There is no way to explore more.

490
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 4: You have the estate, but it's not enough nothing else

491
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 4: to say, nothing else to say, right, So it was

492
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 4: a year of running behind the money. We wouldn't have

493
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 4: been able to do this without the television input in it,

494
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 4: so we have a federal system there again, we had

495
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 4: five broadcasting system, five fundings and of course a lot

496
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 4: of my own venture capital. If you want to put

497
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 4: it this way, The money I earned as a journalist

498
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 4: was the one funding that started the whole thing off.

499
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 5: I couldn't have in there.

500
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 4: You know, financing the research before we got any money

501
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 4: to produce the film.

502
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 5: So that was not easy.

503
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,239
Speaker 4: So what we have here isn't up and down, so

504
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 4: there is of course, we do have a culture of

505
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 4: exploring our past. It's very important. There's a lot of

506
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 4: money going into this, into projects who are exploring the

507
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 4: German past. But in times it's difficult to reason what

508
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 4: exactly you want to do. But then you know, what

509
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 4: happened was the war against Ukraine. In a way it

510
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 4: helped us because there was all the imperialism was back,

511
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 4: the war was back, the tanks were back in Europe.

512
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 4: So in a way people had seen that there's a

513
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 4: wurage to tell this story at this time.

514
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 5: That helped, But it was it was a journey.

515
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 2: And actually, yeah, just to add a little episode, by chance,

516
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 2: Sandra and I watched a parade in Moscow after the

517
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 2: war started in May twenty twenty two, and it was

518
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 2: Triumph of the Will. The esthetics of how this parade

519
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: was filmed was so close to Lany Rivenstahal you thought, okay,

520
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 2: she was the teacher or did they learn by watching

521
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 2: again and again Triumph of the Will. Low angle shot

522
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 2: on putting the masses from above like the elevator shot

523
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 2: in Triumph of the Will. So this was a starting

524
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 2: point of what we called the Renaissance of the esthetics.

525
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 2: And it was of course not only Russia. Before you

526
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 2: could see it in China the opening of the Olympic

527
00:30:31,760 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 2: Winter Games. It was so similar to Olympia, even more

528
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: perfect the way how they arranged the bodies, the beauty

529
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 2: of the bodies and the strength. It was Olympia. And

530
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 2: we've said, okay, now we have the key for the film,

531
00:30:48,360 --> 00:30:52,920
Speaker 2: also for financing, so I rewrote the whole script. I

532
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 2: worked for nearly another year on it, and then we

533
00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 2: said now or never, let's try, and and we succeeded,

534
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: and we got all the money, most of the money

535
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 2: we needed and we had before we had. It was

536
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 2: really great to work with Sandra. She said, okay, let's

537
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:14,200
Speaker 2: go for We called it a proof of concept. We

538
00:31:14,280 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 2: had a lot of audio footage. We needed some way

539
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 2: to deal with all this audio because we didn't want

540
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 2: to make a radio play, and so we started to

541
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: work with graphic novel, with comic strips. Everything was not

542
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 2: a good solution. So in the end, after four months

543
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 2: we said, okay, we don't have a solution, but we

544
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 2: now know what doesn't work. So and this was really

545
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 2: again a roller coaster drive we had. In the very end,

546
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 2: eighteen months of editing, I had three editors.

547
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say who That was one

548
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: of my questions, who was your editor?

549
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 3: You went three?

550
00:31:48,600 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 2: The main editor was Schefan Gumbiege. I worked with him

551
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 2: on the film on Joseph Boyce already and he and

552
00:31:57,200 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 2: his team were two other editors.

553
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 3: Remark he added, wonderful editing, Yeah, wonder.

554
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 2: And one is really ingenious. On another level, it's La Folklander.

555
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 2: He has a lot of ideas for the graphic approach,

556
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 2: for the formal approach, and we have a very good

557
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 2: editor from Mexico. He looks in another way on German history.

558
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 2: He always said, oh andress with you guy with your

559
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 2: strange guilt complex, get off. So we had a lot

560
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 2: of debates in the editing room, but productive debates.

561
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,600
Speaker 3: Who is the Mexican editor? What was his name?

562
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,160
Speaker 2: It's Alfredo Castro.

563
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to mention all three editors. We don't

564
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 3: leave somebody out. Yeah. Yeah, a beautifully edited film. Remarkable.

565
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:40,479
Speaker 1: Now for Sandra, you had you interviewed rief install in

566
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: what year?

567
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 3: How far it was right before she died.

568
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 5: Two thousand and two, something like that.

569
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she died soon after that, correct, right, So

570
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 1: my question is none of the interview you did with

571
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: her is in the film?

572
00:32:52,280 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 3: Is that right? Yeah? Now why I'm curious why is.

573
00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 4: That I didn't like it. You see what I prepare

574
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 4: for an interview with someone. I really everything, I watched everything.

575
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 4: I knew the in an instant that the answers I

576
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 4: was getting was the answers she would tell everybody before,

577
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 4: so fifty years of answers she was telling me. It

578
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 4: was so boring. I didn't get anywhere. So I did

579
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 4: the interview, I left the house and I thought this

580
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 4: is not good enough. And when I then when we

581
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:22,479
Speaker 4: started to do the film. I said, no, you know,

582
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 4: we can use the camera work on the house outside,

583
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 4: but not the interview itself.

584
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 5: It's just good enough.

585
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 3: Interesting.

586
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: Most people would have overlooked the quality of the film

587
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: to put their interview in the film. That's interesting now

588
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: for you Andras, you've made a lot of films, and

589
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: you have awards from all kinds of European institutions and

590
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,719
Speaker 1: the festivals, and so for you, you're very, very decorated

591
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,440
Speaker 1: as a filmmaker, but you haven't spent a lot of

592
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 1: time in the US.

593
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,880
Speaker 3: We've instart was in tell you Right, correct.

594
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I and Tell Right, And then we had the

595
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 2: release of the film in September. I was in New York.

596
00:33:59,520 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 2: I was and arbur in Chicago, in Los Angeles and

597
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,080
Speaker 2: San Francisco, and again I was at the Savannah Festival.

598
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 2: I respect in New York. We tried to bit the campaign.

599
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 2: In the very end. We didn't make it on the

600
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: short list, but there was some sort of frost trail

601
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 2: in many newspapers. We were listed among the first ten

602
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,920
Speaker 2: or first fifteen films. Anyway, So I don't mind, because

603
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 2: I had a lot of great debates and discussions after

604
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 2: the screening and it was really inspiring and you always

605
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 2: have the feeling the film helps you to understand the

606
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 2: country in this very situation. And Reevenshtah is some sort

607
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 2: of safe island. People can refer to her, but at

608
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 2: the same time they can speak about their situation right now.

609
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: Documentary filmmakers Andres Vile and Sandra Meischberger, if you're enjoying

610
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 1: this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to follow.

611
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,359
Speaker 1: So here's the thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or

612
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, Andras

613
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:12,400
Speaker 1: discusses his concerns for public broadcasting in both the United

614
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,400
Speaker 1: States and Germany and why he takes what is happening

615
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: in the United States as a warning for Germany.

616
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 3: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing.

617
00:35:29,640 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: In August twenty twenty four, Andres Vile and Sandra Meisberger's

618
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 1: documentary film Reefenstahl premiered at the prestigious Venice International Film Festival.

619
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:42,920
Speaker 1: The film went on to have its North American premiere

620
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: at the Telluride Film Festival. The film has won numerous

621
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: awards from festivals in Venice, Dublin, and the Atlanta Jewish

622
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: Film Festival. It can be streamed on Amazon, Apple TV,

623
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 1: and YouTube. I was curious if Sondra or Andras noticed

624
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: a difference in how German, European or American audiences received

625
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: the film while screening at film festivals around the world.

626
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a difference because of the current situation.

627
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,759
Speaker 2: People after the screening, they told me about the personal experience.

628
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 2: There's somebody who has a girlfriend from Venezuela and they're

629
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,160
Speaker 2: afraid to marry because the ice troops are waiting at

630
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 2: the office. And so then there's a doctor he told me,

631
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 2: I'm a specialist researching breast cancer. I don't get any

632
00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:34,840
Speaker 2: money anymore because it's just a women issue. And so,

633
00:36:35,080 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 2: story by story, people told me about the experience in

634
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 2: the PBS in universities. Suddenly they don't get funding. Everything

635
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 2: is insecure, and the main question always was what has

636
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 2: to happen, that something will happen and that people do something.

637
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 2: And it was interesting when I spoke to people, they said, listen,

638
00:36:57,239 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 2: it's just the issue what you experience here in these people,

639
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: in this group of people of nine or ten spectators

640
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:10,560
Speaker 2: in the audience, everybody is obsessed with something which could happen,

641
00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 2: which already happened. It's such a quick shift of changes,

642
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:20,240
Speaker 2: nobody is really able to look left or right because

643
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 2: everybody's busy and engaged with what could happen and intimidating

644
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 2: him or her. And so that's the system. It's not

645
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 2: by chance, these quick shifts of government declarations or executive

646
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:40,760
Speaker 2: orders ten per day, and so this is disruptive politics.

647
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 2: And that was very interesting because of course it's something

648
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 2: which will happen here too. We can wait, maybe it

649
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 2: takes five years, but then we will have a very

650
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 2: similar situation, maybe even in Germany. So what I experienced

651
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 2: in the US is just a warning what will happen

652
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 2: here very very soon. And I'm deeply concerned at tell you, frankly.

653
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 2: And we have a public radio system still and it's jeopardized.

654
00:38:06,239 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 2: It's in danger, yeah, because we have a financing still

655
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 2: independent of taxis, but people in some parties they want

656
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 2: to shift it. So if it's based on Texas, you

657
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:22,680
Speaker 2: can say tomorrow we don't ask for Texas anymore, and

658
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 2: then we dry out the whole system. And that's the idea.

659
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 2: So what happens now to PBS will happen or could

660
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 2: happen in five to six to seven years here in

661
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 2: Germany too, So for me when you ask what is

662
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 2: the difference, it's a story out of the future still,

663
00:38:39,719 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 2: but it's very current at the same time, and it's threatening.

664
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,360
Speaker 1: Well, Americans are, at least my experience has been that

665
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,760
Speaker 1: Americans are kind of blithe about a lot of things

666
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 1: until they're taken away. The moment you tell them the

667
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: public television is going to go away, they're like, oh, no,

668
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: don't do that. You know, they probably have watched maybe

669
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 1: one PBS program in the last three years, But when

670
00:39:03,239 --> 00:39:04,520
Speaker 1: you tell them there's a threat that it's going to

671
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: be taken away, they're like, oh, I don't want that

672
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 1: to happen. Saving public television in this country can only

673
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: be done by getting rid of Trump.

674
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:14,399
Speaker 3: Once Trump was gone, and assuming he.

675
00:39:14,360 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: Hasn't succeeded by somebody who's of his stripe, and that's

676
00:39:17,840 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: going to be an issue now. Sondra, you're most well known,

677
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: and you were most well known throughout your career as

678
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,640
Speaker 1: a journalist and a television host and an author, but

679
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: you had made movies during that time as well.

680
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 3: Or is this one of your first film projects.

681
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,200
Speaker 4: No, no, No, I'm a producer since twenty five years now,

682
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 4: and we did a lot of things. We are doing

683
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:43,759
Speaker 4: television report ours, documentaries, We're doing greater documentaries, Doku, dharmas,

684
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 4: We're even doing some of fiction movies. You know, as

685
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 4: a journalist, when I can't really get to the core

686
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 4: of a storytelling, there must be some other means. And

687
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 4: this is why I'm producing films for a long time.

688
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,560
Speaker 4: But a project let Re Style is something different because

689
00:40:01,560 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 4: it took a long long way, a lot of research,

690
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 4: a long time.

691
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:07,359
Speaker 5: I mean I.

692
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:11,439
Speaker 4: Started off in twenty eighteen working on this project, which

693
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:13,800
Speaker 4: is really long ago, so this is not the normal

694
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 4: time span. And for example, we are now working with

695
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 4: Andrews on one next film. It's going to be a

696
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 4: feature film. It's about the story. If I might tell

697
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 4: a little bit about that andress about the story of

698
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,360
Speaker 4: one of our presidents, Richard von Weitzeka and his father

699
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 4: was in the diplomat in Hitler's government, part of the

700
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:37,879
Speaker 4: Nazi regime, if you want to put it this way.

701
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 4: He was in trial and the young Richard von Witzaker,

702
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:44,839
Speaker 4: who became our president later, he was one of his

703
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 4: in court, one of his attorneys. So he defended the father,

704
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 4: and it was a way for him to get to

705
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:55,240
Speaker 4: know a father he never really had met before because

706
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 4: that was a father having a career and he was

707
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:00,919
Speaker 4: not at home a lot. So this is the first

708
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 4: the next thing we are working together with Andres, besides

709
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 4: other projects with other directors and other documentary and authors.

710
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,280
Speaker 2: And it's also a very present story because the third

711
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 2: protagonists is Or was a Jewish state attorney who left

712
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 2: Germany in nineteen thirty four and he was very close

713
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 2: to Whiteesacker and he was also studied law, and he

714
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 2: came back in nineteen forty five with the American troops

715
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 2: and he experienced such an anti semitism nineteen forty seven

716
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 2: ninety forty eight during the trialm they told him stories

717
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: like even in the press, and like you're an insect,

718
00:41:45,719 --> 00:41:48,359
Speaker 2: we have to get rid go home, and what does

719
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 2: it mean to go home for a Jewish migrant immigrant.

720
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 2: So it's a very interesting triangle, and again I think

721
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 2: the necessity to do it. It's on many layers, it's

722
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 2: very very current.

723
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:05,320
Speaker 3: What are you working on next, Andres.

724
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the feature film. That's one and the other

725
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: one is SUGG just the story of my family, because

726
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:16,440
Speaker 2: talking about lies and myths, I grew up with a

727
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 2: lot of lies in lives in my family. In two

728
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 2: decades to confront myself, I learned always my grandfather was

729
00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:29,600
Speaker 2: part of the resistant movement against Hitler, and now I

730
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 2: learned I got all the files from the archives. Now

731
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 2: I had to learn. No, he was very close to Himler,

732
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 2: to the Riisfielder SS. So he was telling the public

733
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:45,719
Speaker 2: Himmler that my grandfather did a very good job and

734
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 2: was always cooperative. And then you think cooperation, what does

735
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 2: it mean in the Russian war with SS, you know,

736
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 2: as As was responsible for the killing of millions of

737
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 2: Jews and people from politics, from the Communist Party, et cetera.

738
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 2: And what does it mean corporation? So I have to

739
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 2: deal now not only with the lies and news of

740
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:14,920
Speaker 2: Linnie rievensteal, but also with the lies and myths in

741
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:16,759
Speaker 2: my own family. And this will be a book and

742
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 2: maybe one day also a film. But first of all

743
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 2: I have to take care about the mud under my feet.

744
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: So for you Andres, you made a film the echo

745
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: side the German culture In terms of climate change, how

746
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:36,160
Speaker 1: does that play in Germany? Climate change? Global warming efforts

747
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: to try to arrest. That is it as serious as

748
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:39,839
Speaker 1: I hope it is.

749
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was very serious. We had a lot of well,

750
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 2: there was money in the government which was invested for

751
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 2: green economy. And now after Ukrainian War and the crisis,

752
00:43:54,080 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 2: there was a shift and also the shift in the

753
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 2: public TV. People said, we are fed up because we

754
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 2: can't do anything against the climate catastrophe. So people want

755
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 2: to repress the idea of a crisis. And so it's

756
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 2: not only politics, it's really a challenge at the moment.

757
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:20,320
Speaker 2: People are fed up no apocalyptic storytelling. We need hope,

758
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 2: we need want to escape somehow. So it's a worldwide

759
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 2: phenomena of well repression, the issue, repression the subject and

760
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 2: I actually I wanted to make a film on it,

761
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 2: but at the moment it's not possible.

762
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:35,760
Speaker 4: You know, I wanted to say on the subject before

763
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:38,120
Speaker 4: you know that Donald Trump is a really huge role

764
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 4: model for everybody in the world who wants to get

765
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,919
Speaker 4: rid of all the other subjects, you know, if it's

766
00:44:44,920 --> 00:44:48,600
Speaker 4: the climate change, if it's the international rules, if it's

767
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:52,320
Speaker 4: you know, the international health system. There's so many politic

768
00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 4: forces here in Germany who look up to this man

769
00:44:55,960 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 4: because finally someone is there who denies all it and

770
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 4: they can rely on this American president now and see

771
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 4: and get their interests finally through German politics too. It's

772
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:16,399
Speaker 4: destroy of the whole idea of the Western hemisphere which

773
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 4: we're watching now, not even talking about Greenland and all

774
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 4: the things which are happening now.

775
00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:24,760
Speaker 2: And I tell you this is something. I won't compare

776
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 2: it to nineteen thirty three, but even then it went

777
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 2: so quickly and it was so well prepared. Everything was

778
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 2: prepared in really each part of the life, of the

779
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: private lives. So the Nazi ideology it went everywhere. And

780
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:42,799
Speaker 2: also with some sort of gifts. People were seduced, some

781
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 2: people were threatened, put in prison, the same what we

782
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 2: experience now with ice. So people are a lot, have

783
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 2: a lot of fear. Some people benefit from the system,

784
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 2: and we just have to be aware. And the question

785
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,200
Speaker 2: is what is our part in it? What can we

786
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 2: do without? Yeah, what we me do with a film

787
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 2: like Refins style. And I still believe in the power,

788
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 2: in the strength of art bringing people together in the cinema,

789
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:13,480
Speaker 2: So I'm very old fashioned. I believe in cinema because

790
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,320
Speaker 2: it's a place where people can meet, can discuss things,

791
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:22,359
Speaker 2: and afterwards it's like an energy like a battery, and

792
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 2: they can take some energy in the next couple of

793
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 2: days and some oxygen in the brain, and that's what

794
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 2: we need.

795
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: You look at Refinstel and you wonder, here's a woman

796
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:35,040
Speaker 1: who was a beautiful woman, a dynamic woman. She had

797
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: so many things going for where you wonder did she

798
00:46:38,280 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 1: have to I guess in her mind she had to

799
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 1: knuckle under and acquiesce to the Nazis. She had to

800
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: play ball with the Nazis to have the career she had.

801
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, you know, that was one of my points

802
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,360
Speaker 4: because from a female perspective, that would have been a

803
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 4: role model for me. Because Refinstyle invented herself in the twenties.

804
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 4: She got to be an actress, she got to you know,

805
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 4: and without any education on that. She she was a

806
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 4: dancer before against the will of the father. So she

807
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 4: was she was a woman in a man's world twice

808
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 4: before in the in the alpine filming, and then at

809
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 4: the Nazi party there were not so many women were there,

810
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 4: so she was so unique.

811
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:23,400
Speaker 5: But she she.

812
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 4: She didn't she was not seduced by the Nazist that's

813
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:30,760
Speaker 4: the wrong tale. She went to Hitler because she didn't

814
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 4: want to have the most.

815
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 5: Powerful men shed them.

816
00:47:33,920 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 4: She seduce them in a way, but she just shared

817
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 4: her ideals with Hitler. They were so much same. They

818
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 4: wanted to be more than just a human being. They

819
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 4: wanted to be superior. They wanted to dominate others. So

820
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 4: that was the fascistic gene in you know, the DNA

821
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 4: in both of them. And this is why they came together.

822
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 4: They found themselves. And you know, I sometimes when I

823
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 4: watch television with politicians back in the in the White House,

824
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,880
Speaker 4: for example, I see Marco Rubio, for example, he stands

825
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:10,760
Speaker 4: behind someone who just is saying the most impossible things

826
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 4: concerning international rules of law, politics and whatsoever. And I

827
00:48:18,160 --> 00:48:20,800
Speaker 4: just always think, you know, there will be a time,

828
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 4: dear Marco Rubio, where this man in front is gone,

829
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 4: and then it's going to be you we are looking

830
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 4: at and what you did in this time.

831
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: Right, and you try to pull a Refinstall and deny

832
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,919
Speaker 1: all the things that you said in allegiance with them.

833
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 1: Reef Install is a role model for everybody wants to

834
00:48:39,840 --> 00:48:42,800
Speaker 1: deny their past. What I love about the film also

835
00:48:42,920 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: is that when you want to show young Reef Install,

836
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: young refer install in her career. A lot of other

837
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: filmmakers might have had somebody in an interview. They show

838
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 1: a couple of quick photographs and they mentioned it very

839
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:56,840
Speaker 1: briskly and said, well, yeah, yeah, she was an actress

840
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 1: and she was this, and she started this. You do

841
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,440
Speaker 1: something in this film which I love. I love when

842
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:04,680
Speaker 1: filmmakers say to the audience, we're going to take our

843
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: time here and we're going.

844
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 3: To really look at this.

845
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 1: And you have this extended period of the film examining

846
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: her youth and looking at her through that lens of

847
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 1: her acting and her dancing and her filmmaking, and it

848
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: really goes on for a while, and you go, you

849
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:21,919
Speaker 1: insist that the audience see this.

850
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's a question. I tell you. From the

851
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 2: very beginning, there was an expression of term ambivalence. We

852
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 2: have to accept or even admire. She was a talent.

853
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:39,480
Speaker 2: Also regarding editing, regarding directing. She was a very poor writer.

854
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 2: But she had talents and she was beautiful, and for

855
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 2: an ambivalent approach, we have to also celebrate her abilities.

856
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 3: She's becoming the woman that then presents.

857
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: Herself to Hitler, Yeah, and says to Hitler, I want

858
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 1: to a chronicle. I'm your Boswell. I want to chronicle

859
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 1: this time of our history. It could have been somebody

860
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,320
Speaker 1: else and they might not have succeeded.

861
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:05,960
Speaker 4: Because she was a force, and she was a force

862
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:07,919
Speaker 4: when she was one hundred years old.

863
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:09,120
Speaker 5: She was impressive.

864
00:50:10,120 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 1: I'll take your word for that. This is a remarkable film.

865
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: And then the topic just happens to be this an

866
00:50:15,719 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: extraordinarily inscrutable woman. Ultimately she's inscrutable. I wish you both

867
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,839
Speaker 1: the great success with the film and it's and thank

868
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: you so much for doing the show.

869
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 3: It meant the world to me.

870
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,879
Speaker 2: Thank you, Yeah, thank you Elec for inviting us. It

871
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 2: was a real pleasure.

872
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 5: Thanks for everything.

873
00:50:34,719 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 1: My thanks to filmmakers Andres Vile and Sandra Meischberger. This

874
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 1: episode was recorded at CDM Studios in New York City.

875
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:47,560
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo, Zach MacNeice, and Victoria de Martin.

876
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:51,799
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Isaac Kaplan Wilner. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's

877
00:50:51,840 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: the thing that's brought to you by iHeart Radio, the company,

878
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: the

879
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 2: Compan