Leni Riefenstahl needed Willy Zielke to be successful as an artist. In her book, Nina Gladitz describes how Riefenstahl abused the photographer and director for her own purposes

New study on Leni Riefenstahl Cheated out of his work: The Willy Zielke case Leni Riefenstahl needed Willy Zielke to be successful as an artist. In her book, Nina Gladitz describes how Riefenstahl abused the photographer and director for her own purposes. Christiane Fricke 02/13/2021 - 1:06 p.m. This photo is also circulating in literature and trade as a picture of Leni Riefenstahl under the title "The Young Athlete" or "Athlete". Düsseldorf. Hardly anyone wanted to know more about the tragic life story of the photographer and director Willy Zielke (1902 to 1989). Because to do so, you would have had to take on the filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (1902 to 2003), who famously took anyone who tarnished her borrowed fame to court. The Hitler friend, who considered herself to be an exceptional, apolitical artist until the end, also took legal action against the documentary filmmaker Nina Gladitz. Riefenstahl had sued Gladitz because she had allegedly falsely claimed in her film “Zeit des Schweigens und der Dunkelheit” (Time of Silence and Darkness), which was broadcast on WDR in 1982, that Riefenstahl had used interned Sinti and Roma as extras for her film “Tiefland”, which was completed in 1944; and that Riefenstahl had been indifferent to the fact that they were subsequently deported to Auschwitz, where most of them were murdered. Gladitz won the long second-instance proceedings on almost all counts and began to research further. The result is the exciting, not emotionless publication “Leni Riefenstahl. Karriere einer Täterin”, recently published by Orell Füssli. Willy Zielke was recruited by Riefenstahl in 1935 as artistic director for the prologue to her Olympic film because she needed his artistic talent to make her film a success. She needed it if she "wanted to keep the kingdom of documentary film that Hitler had given her for good," Gladitz describes the director's ulterior motive. Zielke himself did not think much of her as a filmmaker. "A series of boringly filmed marches," he noted after watching her party conference film "Triumph of the Will." However, he underestimated her talent for intrigue. According to Gladitz, Riefenstahl not only ensured that he could never again make a film on his own in the "Third Reich" or work as a cameraman for anyone other than her. She is said to have made him completely dependent on her and indirectly ensured his admission to a psychiatric hospital, where Nazi doctors then incapacitated him and forcibly sterilized him. Was an outstanding photographer and filmmaker. Leni Riefenstahl secured his talent in a cruel way. Gladitz tells Handelsblatt that she thinks three topics are most important to her: her findings about the film “Tiefland”, which was sponsored by Hitler, as the ultimate anti-Semitic film, which was intended to “far outshine” the hate film “Jud Süß” and hold out the prospect of a future without Jews, the life story of Willy Zielke, who was exploited by Riefenstahl, sent to a mental hospital and almost killed, and the role of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK), which has been the guardian of 700 boxes of Riefenstahl’s estate since 2018. Of particular interest to the art market is Gladitz’s criticism of the way the authorship of Zielke’s Olympic photographs has been handled. Riefenstahl had already acquired these during his lifetime using hair-raising methods and declared them to be her own. Institutions and market participants maintained this legend, sometimes against their better judgment. This is also the case with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which until recently published photographs such as the bust of the javelin thrower as Riefenstahl works and marketed them via the foundation's own image portal bpk. In the meantime, it has corrected the caption in a blog about the Riefenstahl estate after, according to Gladitz, a film producer wrote a scathing letter to the foundation's president, Hermann Parzinger. "The photograph was most likely taken by the photographer, cameraman and director Willy Zielke," the foundation's blog now states. Research is currently being carried out on this. In addition, Zielke had transferred all rights to his films and photographs for Riefenstahl's Olympic project to Riefenstahl's Olympiade Film G.m.b.H. by contract before starting his work in May 1936. Ludger Derenthal, head of the photography collection at the Berlin State Museums, added when asked that these were image and usage rights. And he considers the image in question to be "quite clear" and 99.5 percent a Zielke photo. The foundation says it regularly adapts its publications to updated findings, as in this case the blog post from 2018.