Director Nina Gladitz is dead: The documentary filmmaker became known for her criticism of Leni Riefenstahl

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Nina Gladitz at her trial against Leni Riefenstahl before the Freiburg Regional Court in 1984: The lawsuit was dismissed on most points

Photo: Marlis Decker / State Archive Freiburg W 140 No. 07663 / State Archive Baden-Württemberg

Nina Gladitz has always been a bit of an activist: She started her early career with a documentary against nuclear power.

Later she even ended up in court with her research on the Nazi past of the director Leni Riefenstahl: Now director Nina Gladitz has died at the age of 75, according to information from the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Gmünder Tagespost.

In 1975 Gladitz moved with protesters to Wyhl am Kaiserstuhl - against the construction of the planned nuclear power plant.

This is how her documentary film "Better to be active today than radioactive tomorrow" was made.

The protests had an effect: the nuclear power plant was never completed.

She achieved greater fame in 1982 for her documentary "Time of Silence and Darkness".

Gladitz dealt with Leni Riefenstahl's film »Tiefland« (shot from 1940 to 1944) and the director's Nazi past.

After publication, she was sued by Riefenstahl for defamation.

The lawsuit was dismissed on most counts.

In the documentary, Gladitz claimed that the director had used around 60 Sinti and Roma from a concentration camp as extras in her film "Tiefland".

Gladitz had to cut out parts of the film after a judge's decision.

What remained, however, was the thesis that Riefenstahl personally selected and committed the concentration camp inmates.

In autumn 2020 Gladitz published her last book "Leni Riefenstahl - Career of a perpetrator".

There she wrote again about Riefenstahl's connections to the NSDAP and National Socialist propaganda.

According to the Gmünder Tagespost, Gladitz died in her place of birth Schwäbisch Gmünd.

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