THE MORAL AND ARTISTIC INVOLVEMENT OF COCO CHANEL AND LENI RIEFENSTAHL WITH THE NAZI REGIME PART I

Image: Leni Reifesnstahl

INTRODUCTION

This series will seek to illustrate the complexities of judging the actions and works of talented artists who collaborated with the Nazis during World War Two (WWII), specifically Leni Riefenstahl and Coco Chanel. I will analyse their respective involvement in the Nazi regime and claim they can be held morally responsible for their actions despite the external influences. I will also investigate whether their talent can excuse morally unjustifiable acts.

Section I will examine the life of Riefenstahl as a director for the Nazis and the films she produced during the Third Reich, particularly focusing on her wartime correspondence, her picture Tiefland and Bernard Williams moral (circumstantial) luck.

SECTION I

LENI RIEFENSTAHL

Riefenstahl was an incredible German actress and film director, gaining a vast reputation for her talent, and achieving more power and independence than any female director before and after WWII. During her prominent filmmaking years, producing films for herself (Olympia and Tiefland) and for Hitler’s wishes (Victory of the Faith and Triumph of the Will [TOTW]), Riefenstahl was awarded several prizes for her artistry. This included the Best Foreign Documentary for TOTW at the Venice Film Festival in 1935, the 1938 Mussolini Cup at the Venice Film Festival and the Kinema Junpo Award in 1941 for Olympia.

Hence, it cannot be denied that her filmography demanded talent and that her work influenced European cinematography. However, a concerning consistency throughout Riefenstahl’s filmography, especially TOWT, was the glorification of Hitler and making his Nazi ideology a message of peace.

Due to this, post-WWII, Riefenstahl was considered a ‘propaganda’ producer for the Fascists, portraying Hitler as an optimistic and courageous man. This is problematic as propaganda films intend for the viewers to adopt the position that the filmmaker promotes. Hence, the way people viewed Riefenstahl and her films subsequently changed; we perceive Riefenstahl’s role as problematic only in retrospect and in light of what we know about WWII.

Riefenstahl’s true attitude towards the Nazi regime remains unknown, complicated by the fact that her work was viewed at the time not as problematic, but entertaining. In addition, because Riefenstahl’s films produced after TOTW were also viewed as propaganda, her use of Gypsy inmates in Tiefland was very controversial, implying support for Nazi ideology. This series will explore the nature of this complexity and attempts to illuminate it by distinguishing between moral and aesthetic value.

HOW DID THE KOŃSKIE MASSACRE AFFECT RIEFENSTAHL?

In light of horrendous evils, such as the Night of Long Knives (1934) and Kristallnacht (1938), it is difficult to accept that Riefenstahl was utterly naïve about the events occurring in Europe. Less than two weeks into the war, Riefenstahl worked as a war correspondent in Końskie, Poland and witnessed the massacre of around thirty unarmed Polish-Jewish civilians and the wounding of four German soldiers.

Riefenstahl denies witnessing the massacre in her autobiography, claiming she only witnessed a German military discipline breach and terminated her film reporting. Riefenstahl continued to collaborate with the Nazis even after the Końskie affair, yet she no longer wanted to be a war correspondent, which is particularly troubling. This suggests that whatever she witnessed did not wholly detach her from the Nazis; since the Końskie massacre was two years before the implementation of the Final Solution (1942), Riefenstahl must have been aware of the Nazi intentions toward Jews, Poles and many others. Therefore, her ignorance, in light of human rights violations, is extremely difficult to accept.

It could be argued that Riefenstahl was unaware of the extreme Nazi wickedness, complicating the issue further. Nevertheless, Riefenstahl claimed she did not know the difference between the right and the left political parties but was aware of Hitler’s racial policies after reading Mein Kampf.

Many Germans, including Riefenstahl, welcomed Hitler’s policies, choosing to believe his racism was nothing but campaign rhetoric, possibly motivated by the extensive unemployment and hyperinflation rates. In retrospect, the reality was the genocide of the ‘undesirable’ populations of Europe.

Still, Hitler held a deep enthusiasm for Riefenstahl’s films, notably The Blue Light (TBL), and wished her to make his political movies that would, ultimately, advance her career. Thus, Riefenstahl possibly owed her independent career to working for the Nazis.

Similarly, most Germans, who welcomed Hitler’s policies, took on Nazi jobs and did not recognise the war’s severity until it was over. For example, Hitler’s secretary, Traudl Junge, maintained that after Hitler’s suicide, she regained her freedom to see the war in all its ugly appearance. The imagery of dead soldiers, refugees, and burning houses painted a concentrated picture of Germany’s damage and defeat, illustrating the cloud of self-deception that most people were living under in Germany.

On the other hand, some Germans were aware of the situation despite their patriotism to Germany. The Geschwister Scholl (the Scholl siblings) highlight this through their arrest and execution after distributing leaflets calling on people to resist the Nazi regime. Hence, individuals connected to the Nazis likely were aware of their threats. Therefore, either these individuals must have chosen to turn a blind eye to the Nazi crimes, or this is an excuse for wilful actions.

CAN MORAL LUCK EXCUSE ACTIONS?

It must be recognised that Riefenstahl, like all humans, was subject to moral luck. Riefenstahl’s career and choices are circumstantial to living during WWII. I agree with Bernard Williams to the extent that morality and luck are intertwined but that contend that the concept of our moral luck alone cannot explain the complexities of our feelings towards Riefenstahl and her work.

I will be focusing on Williams’ discussion of circumstantial luck in the particular case of Gauguin and his art. By art, I refer to the artist’s creativity and the talent necessary to express beauty or emotional power. I will suggest that art, ultimately, has aesthetic and moral value, building on Williams’ point that we can value things that conflict with ethics.

For example, Gauguin would have had a significant decision to make: whether to stay in France, abandoning his dreams of becoming a great artist and finding meaning in his life, or leave for Tahiti and abandon his family, in the hope he would become a great painter.

Though not a direct analogy, Riefenstahl’s decision included risking a career decline by not collaborating with the Nazis, or collaborating and gaining success, both holding unknown consequences. Essentially, both Gauguin and Riefenstahl illustrate a selfish act in prioritising their careers.

Williams describes two distinct ways in which Gauguin’s decision to leave could have failed. Firstly, if something external to Gauguin’s talent went wrong, such as if his ship sank or he fell ill and died. If Gauguin had died travelling to Tahiti, he would not necessarily have been mistaken in his ambition to be a great artist due to shipwreck or illness; he would have been unlucky.

However, another prospect is Gauguin arriving in Tahiti to find that he was talentless. Similarly, Riefenstahl could have been a casualty of WWII or talentless. Both of these scenarios would suggest that Gauguin’s and Riefenstahl’s decision was an intrinsic mistake.

Image: Paul Gauguin - Where do we come from? painting, flickr

If Gauguin and Riefenstahl failed, their decision would be unjustifiable as their basic regrets will be attached to their decision, and if they succeeded, they would not. Nevertheless, Gauguin’s eventual success as a painter and Riefenstahl’s success as a filmmaker constitutes a form of moral luck, in that their artistic achievement justifies what they did. Not everyone will accept their decisions, but can make sense only to the artist.

Gauguin’s and Riefenstahl’s actions had a moral cost, meaning they may not have been able to justify themselves to others; however, the fact that their art holds value seems to provide some kind of justification. Williams would not necessarily justify Riefenstahl’s actions, but the point holds that her art was, and still I, valuable like Gauguin’s was. This raises the question of whether talent can excuse morally questionable actions, such as leaving your family or collaborating with an unethical regime. Furthermore, the question of how we view the art itself: clearly, art holds inherent aesthetic beauty, but whether we must now reassess the value of the art itself is questionable.

Williams’ argument illustrates that moral luck includes voluntary (deciding what decision to make) and involuntary (being naturally talented and having good health) agency. These voluntary and involuntary elements are essential to the outcome but do not lie entirely within our control.

Williams portrays success as something wider than recognition: Gauguin may be a successful artist, and Riefenstahl a successful director, in the sense that their work is beautiful and valuable for its own sake, but this may not mean that their work is popular. This implies that there are at least two different types of values in art: instrumental value (for example, financial gain and recognition that the art brings) and aesthetic value (as the paintings themselves are beautiful).

This series proposes that there is a third value art can also hold: moral value. I propose that this moral value is distinct from the moral judgment we might make about the artist's actions. Rather, the moral value of the art itself relates to the moral instincts elicited from us when we experience the work of art itself. This goes beyond Williams' account and, as I will show, the kind of moral cost that we shall see the Sinti extras experienced in the production of Riefenstahl's Tiefland.

Williams would conclude that Riefenstahl’s work was not immune to moral luck. Undoubtedly, without Hitler and WWII, Riefenstahl would not have participated in her wartime activities as the circumstances she would be living in would have been entirely different. Still, many people collaborated with the Nazis, producing nothing of value, whereas Riefenstahl was not talentless, and her work holds aesthetic value.

The question is, should these moral conditions be examined together or separately from the aesthetic value of her art? If we conclude that they should be treated separately, there remains a problem of whether this satisfies our complex feelings about Riefenstahl’s work. For example, why do we feel moral revulsion when considering her films at the same time as appreciating their beauty? This dissertation proposes that these feelings of moral revulsion are themselves part of the answer: just as we intuitively respond to the aesthetic value of Riefenstahl’s work, our separate moral revulsion is a response to the film's moral worth.

Williams rightly suggests that concerns between morality and art are linked in ways that are not immediately obvious to us. Williams also points out that we usually think morality is immune to luck, but his example of Gauguin illustrates a tension between our judgement of those who have produced great works of art and those who have done similar, morally dubious, things without producing such works.

However, Williams' argument does not account for the mixed feelings we may experience towards the work itself when we know its moral history; in addition, I question whether it is the case that we do judge Gauguin's actions less harshly. Indeed, it is common to hear people assert they love the art of a particular individual before declaring the artist themselves had a rotten character. I highlight the complexity of our feelings extends beyond the juxtaposition of our approval of the work itself against our disapproval of its creator; the complexity extends to our feelings towards the work itself.

For example, the design and tailoring of Hugo Boss's clothes are extremely beautiful. However, when one learns that Boss designed and made the Nazi SS (the Schutzstaffel) uniforms using forced labourers from concentration camps, who were either worked to death or eventually sent to Auschwitz to be killed, the intuitive response is emotional and moral disgust. The feeling of disgust is often recalled when we see the SS uniform, not just when we reflect on Boss as a person.

This tells us that our emotional complexities should be taken seriously when considering the overall value of the works themselves: it is too simplistic to say that we judge the artist's moral work and the art's aesthetic worth. If this were so, we would not experience moral unease when encountering these works; we would not be able to say, "I cannot look at this in the same way now I know its history." Nevertheless, this additionally questions whether we should hold morality at the highest value, thereby condemning and rejecting art’s value despite their conflict with ethics.

HOW DID THE PRODUCTION OF TIEFLAND AFFECET RIEFENSTAHL’S STATUS?

Despite not being a member of the Nazi Party, Riefenstahl would have been aware of the regime’s operations and ideologies. This makes her use of German Gypsy (Sinti) film extras especially worrying. In late 1940 Riefenstahl, with an armed guard on orders of SS commandant, Anton Bohmer, picked her extras from the 270 Gypsies interned at Maxglan and Marzhan Nazi collection camps, for a Tiefland casting call.

Riefenstahl would later deny she picked out the victims from the collection camps, and although several post-war trials have concluded that Riefenstahl did not personally select the Gypsies from the camps or held knowledge about their destiny to Auschwitz, the claim remains incredibly perplexing.

Indeed, knowing that the Gypsies were imprisoned in a Nazi camp, we would reason that their future was not an optimistic one. Another concern is Riefenstahl's claim that she saw nearly all of the Gypsies again post-WWII when, in fact, only a few survived the horrors of Auschwitz. Hence, it is questionable whether Riefenstahl truly believed she saw nearly all the Gypsies after the war or if she merely made such a statement to cover her morally questionable disregard of them.

The moral dubiousness of Riefenstahl's actions lies with her use of the Gypsies as a means to her own end, producing her film, rather than treating the Gypsies as ends in themselves, as autonomous agents, compounded by the fact that Auschwitz unfortunately happened, and most Gypsy inmates perished.

CAN REIFENSTAHL’S TALENT EXCUSE HER MORALLY DISGUSTING ACTS?

The complexity lies in the fact that Riefenstahl, who acted immorally, was also highly talented. Riefenstahl was, of course, like many other Germans, unaware of all the crimes of the Nazis. She is not responsible for the Poles' deaths at Końskie or the Gypsies at Auschwitz.

However, since she witnessed the atrocities of war during her time at Końskie, surely, she would have been aware of the destiny of the Gypsies. This questions whether her talent excuses her self-deception in an evil regime: perhaps Riefenstahl's immersion in her films suggests a retreat from reality or even made her so blind-sighted by her career that she did not take notice of events occurring in Germany and beyond.

What is exceptionally perplexing is whether it is legitimate to love one's career so much that one violates human rights for the sake of art. Nevertheless, this does not make her any less morally responsible for her own decisions. The question of our own feelings towards her art itself will be examined in Section III.

Stay tuned for Section II, focusing focus on Coco Chanel’s collaborations as a Nazi spy in Paris, as a non-German, suggesting how Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil relates to Chanel and her desire to protect her career.

For more information:

Bernard Williams. Moral Luck. United States: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Daniel Callut. “Living the Life Authentic: Bernard Williams on Paul Gauguin.” Aeon Essays. June 11, 2018.

DW.com. “Sophie, Hans Scholl Remain Symbols of Resistance.” May 08, 2021.

IMDb. “Leni Riefenstahl Awards.” May 07, 2021.

Leni Riefenstahl. Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992.

Roman Köster & Julia Schnaus. “Sewing for Hitler? The Clothing Industry During the ‘Third Reich’.”Between Coercion and Private Initiative Entrepreneurial Freedom of Action During the ‘Third Reich’ Vol. 62, No. 3 (2018): pp393-409.

Steven Bach. Leni: The Life and Works of Leni Riefenstahl. Great Britain: Abacus, 2008.

World at War. “Interviews with Albert Speer and Traudl Junge, Hitler’s Last Secretary.” 1973.