Leni Riefenstahl

German filmmaker (1902–2003)

Leni Riefenstahl

Riefenstahl in 1935

Born|

Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl

(1902-08-22)22 August 1902

Berlin, Germany

Died| 8 September 2003(2003-09-08) (aged 101)

Pöcking, Germany

Resting place| Munich Waldfriedhof
Occupations|

* Film director
* producer
* screenwriter
* editor
* photographer
* actress

Years active| 1925–2002
Notable work|

* The Victory of Faith (1933)
* Triumph of the Will (1935)
* Olympia (1938)
* Tiefland (1954)

Spouse|

Eugen Karl "Peter" Jacob

(m. 1944; div. 1946)​

Partner| Horst Kettner [fr] (from 1968)
Website| leni-riefenstahl.de
Signature

Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (German: [ˈleːniː ˈʁiːfn̩ʃtaːl] ⓘ; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, photographer, and actress. She is considered one of the most controversial personalities in film history. Regarded by many critics as an "innovative filmmaker and creative aesthete",[1] she is also criticized for her works in the service of propaganda during the Nazi era.[2][3][4]

A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl became interested in dancing during her childhood, taking lessons and performing across all Europe. After seeing a promotional poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny, she was inspired to move into acting and between 1925 and 1929 starred in five successful motion pictures. Riefenstahl became one of the few women in Germany to direct a film during the Weimar era when, in 1932, she decided to try directing with her own film, The Blue Light.[5]

In the latter half of the 1930s, she directed the Nazi propaganda films Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938), resulting in worldwide attention and acclaim. The films are widely considered two of the most effective and technically innovative propaganda films ever made. Her involvement in Triumph of the Will, however, significantly damaged her career and reputation after World War II. Adolf Hitler closely collaborated with Riefenstahl during the production of at least three important Nazi films, and they formed a friendly relationship.[6][7]

After the war, Riefenstahl was arrested and found to be a Nazi "fellow traveller" but was not charged with war crimes.[8] Throughout her later life, she denied having known about the Holocaust, and was criticized as the "voice of the 'how could we have known?' defence."[9][10][11] Riefenstahl's postwar work included her autobiography and two photography books on the Nuba peoples of southern Sudan.

## Early life

[edit]

Helene Bertha Amalie Riefenstahl was born in Berlin on 22 August 1902.[12] Her father, Alfred Theodor Paul Riefenstahl,[13] owned a successful heating and ventilation company and wanted his daughter to follow him into the business world.[14] Since Riefenstahl was the only child for several years, Alfred wanted her to carry on the family name and secure the family fortune.[14] However, her mother, Bertha Ida (Scherlach), who had been a part-time seamstress before her marriage, had faith in Riefenstahl and believed that her daughter's future was in show business.[15][14] Riefenstahl had a younger brother, Heinz, who was killed at the age of 39 on the Eastern Front in Nazi Germany's war against the Soviet Union.[16]

Riefenstahl fell in love with the arts in her childhood.[17][18] She began to paint and write poetry at the age of four.[17] She was also athletic, and at the age of twelve joined a gymnastics and swimming club called Nixe.[14] Her mother was confident her daughter would grow up to be successful in the field of art and therefore gave her full support, unlike Riefenstahl's father, who was not interested in his daughter's artistic inclinations.[14] In 1918, when she was 16, Riefenstahl attended a presentation of Snow White which interested her deeply; it led her to want to be a dancer.[14] Her father instead wanted to provide his daughter with an education that could lead to a more dignified occupation. His wife, however, continued to support her daughter's passion.[14] Without her husband's knowledge, she enrolled Riefenstahl in dance and ballet classes at the Grimm-Reiter Dance School in Berlin, where she quickly became a star pupil.[14]

## Dancing and acting careers

[edit]

Riefenstahl (right) as a topless "Roman Bath" extra in Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit (1925)

Riefenstahl attended dancing academies and became well known for her self-styled interpretive dancing skills, traveling across Europe with Max Reinhardt in a show funded by Jewish producer Harry Sokal.[19][20] Riefenstahl often made almost 700 ℛ︁ℳ︁ for each performance.[20] She began to suffer a series of foot injuries, which led to knee surgery that threatened her dancing career.[14] It was while going to a doctor's appointment that she first saw a poster for the 1924 film Mountain of Destiny.[21] She became inspired to go into movie making, and began visiting the cinema to see films and also attended film shows.[14]

On one of her adventures, Riefenstahl met Luis Trenker, an actor who had appeared in Mountain of Destiny.[21] At a meeting arranged by her friend Gunther Rahn, she met Arnold Fanck, the director of Mountain of Destiny and a pioneer of the mountain film genre.[21] Fanck was working on a film in Berlin. After Riefenstahl told him how much she admired his work, she also convinced him of her acting skill.[21] She persuaded him to feature her in one of his films.[21] Riefenstahl later received a package from Fanck containing the script of the 1926 film The Holy Mountain.[21] She made a series of films for Fanck, where she learned from him acting and film editing techniques.[21] One of Fanck's films that brought Riefenstahl into the limelight was The White Hell of Pitz Palu of 1929, co-directed by G. W. Pabst.[21] She had to undergo many physical challenges that would probably be deemed unethical in today's standards. Some of the torments included: being engulfed in small avalanches, jumping into mountain lakes and icy streams, climbing rocky pinnacles while barefoot, letting herself be pulled up a rock face being pelted by snow and ice, balancing on a ladder above a deep glacial crevasse, and enduring obscene jokes from her exclusively male colleagues.[22] Her fame spread to countries outside Germany.[21][14]

Riefenstahl produced and directed her own work called Das Blaue Licht ("The Blue Light") in 1932, co-written by Carl Mayer and Béla Balázs.[23] This film won the silver medal at the Venice Film Festival, but was not universally well-received, for which Riefenstahl blamed the critics, many of whom were Jewish.[24][25] Upon its 1938 re-release, the names of Balázs and Sokal, both Jewish, were removed from the credits; some reports say this was at Riefenstahl's behest.[24] In the film, Riefenstahl played an innocent peasant girl who is hated by the villagers because they think she is diabolical and cast out.[21] She is protected by a glowing mountain grotto.[21] According to herself, Riefenstahl received invitations to travel to Hollywood to create films, but she refused them in favor of remaining in Germany with a boyfriend.[26] Hitler was a fan of the film, and thought Riefenstahl epitomized the perfect German female.[25] He saw talent in Riefenstahl and arranged a meeting.[25]

In 1933, Riefenstahl appeared in the U.S.-German co-productions of the Arnold Fanck-directed, German-language SOS Eisberg and the Tay Garnett-directed, English-language S.O.S. Iceberg. The films were filmed simultaneously in English and German and produced and distributed by Universal Studios. Her role as an actress in S.O.S. Iceberg was her only English language role in film.[27]

## Directing career

[edit]

Riefenstahl stands near Heinrich Himmler while instructing her camera crew at Nuremberg, 1934.

### Propaganda films

[edit]

Riefenstahl heard Nazi Party (NSDAP) leader Adolf Hitler speak at a rally in 1932 and was mesmerized by his talent as a public speaker.[6] Describing the experience in her memoir, Riefenstahl wrote, "I had an almost apocalyptic vision that I was never able to forget. It seemed as if the Earth's surface were spreading out in front of me, like a hemisphere that suddenly splits apart in the middle, spewing out an enormous jet of water, so powerful that it touched the sky and shook the earth."[6]

Hitler was immediately captivated by Riefenstahl's work. She is described as fitting in with Hitler's ideal of Aryan womanhood, a feature he had noted when he saw her starring performance in Das Blaue Licht.[28] In May 1933, Hitler asked Riefenstahl to make a film about Horst Wessel, but she declined.[29] Riefenstahl was offered the opportunity to direct Der Sieg des Glaubens, an hour-long propaganda film about the fifth Nuremberg Rally in 1933.[6] The opportunity that was offered was a huge surprise to Riefenstahl. Hitler had ordered Joseph Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry to give the film commission to Riefenstahl, but the Ministry had never informed her.[30] Riefenstahl agreed to direct the movie even though she was only given a few days before the rally to prepare.[30] She and Hitler got on well, forming a friendly relationship.[6] The propaganda film was funded entirely by the NSDAP.[6]

During the filming of Der Sieg des Glaubens, Hitler had stood side by side with the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Ernst Röhm, a man with whom he clearly had a close working relationship. Röhm was murdered on Hitler's orders a short time later, during the purge of the SA referred to as the Night of the Long Knives. It has gone on record that, immediately following the killings, Hitler ordered all copies of the film to be destroyed, although Riefenstahl disputed that this ever happened.[31]

Riefenstahl and a camera crew stand in front of Hitler's car during the 1934 rally in Nuremberg.

Still impressed with Riefenstahl's work, Hitler asked her to film Triumph des Willens ("Triumph of the Will"), a new propaganda film about the 1934 party rally in Nuremberg.[32] More than one million Germans participated in the rally.[33] The film is sometimes considered the greatest propaganda film ever made.[34] Initially, according to Riefenstahl, she resisted and did not want to create further Nazi Party films, instead wanting to direct a feature film based on Eugen d'Albert's Tiefland ("Lowlands"), an opera that was extremely popular in Berlin in the 1920s.[32] Riefenstahl received private funding for the production of Tiefland, but the filming in Spain was derailed and the project was cancelled.[32] (When Tiefland was eventually shot, between 1940 and 1944, it was done in black and white, and was the third most expensive film produced in Nazi Germany.[35] During the filming of Tiefland, Riefenstahl utilized Romani from internment camps for extras, who were severely mistreated on set, and when the filming completed they were sent to the death camp Auschwitz.[35]) Hitler was able to convince her to film Triumph des Willens on the condition that she would not be required to make further films for the party, according to Riefenstahl.[36] The motion picture was generally recognized as an epic, innovative work of propaganda filmmaking.[36] The film took Riefenstahl's career to a new level and gave her further international recognition.[37]

In interviews for the 1993 documentary The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, Riefenstahl adamantly denied any deliberate attempt to create Nazi propaganda and said she was disgusted that Triumph des Willens was used in such a way.[26]

In a private letter to Hitler, quoted in a 2024 documentary, Riefenstahl seems enthusiastic about the propaganda effects of Triumph des Willens: "the film's impact as German propaganda is greater than I could have imagined and your image, my Führer, is always applauded."[38]

Despite allegedly vowing not to make any more films about the Nazi Party, Riefenstahl made the 28-minute Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht ("Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces") about the German Army in 1935.[39] Like Der Sieg des Glaubens and Triumph des Willens, this was filmed at the annual Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg.[39] Riefenstahl said this film was a sub-set of Der Sieg des Glaubens, added to mollify the German Army which felt it was not represented well in Triumph des Willens.[40]

Hitler invited Riefenstahl to film the 1936 Summer Olympics scheduled to be held in Berlin, a film which Riefenstahl said had been commissioned by the International Olympic Committee.[41] She visited Greece to take footage of the route of the inaugural torch relay and the games' original site at Olympia, where she was aided by Greek photographer Nelly's.[41] This material became Olympia, a hugely successful film which has since been widely noted for its technical and aesthetic achievements.[41] Olympia was secretly funded by the Nazis.[42] She was one of the first filmmakers to use tracking shots in a documentary,[43] placing a camera on rails to follow the athletes' movement. The film is also noted for its slow motion shots.[43] Riefenstahl played with the idea of slow motion, underwater diving shots, extremely high and low shooting angles, panoramic aerial shots, and tracking system shots for allowing fast action. Riefenstahl also "reversed the film to make the divers turn backwards, holding them in the air as if to defy the laws of gravity".[38] Many of these shots were relatively unheard of at the time, but Riefenstahl's use and augmentation of them set a standard, and is the reason they are still used to this day.[44] Riefenstahl's work on Olympia has been cited as a major influence in modern sports photography.[41][43] Riefenstahl filmed competitors of all races, including African-American Jesse Owens in what later became famous footage.[45]

Riefenstahl in conversation with Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, 1937

Olympia premiered for Hitler's 49th birthday in 1938. Its international debut led Riefenstahl to embark on an American publicity tour in an attempt to secure commercial release.[46] In February 1937, Riefenstahl enthusiastically told a reporter for the Detroit News, "To me, Hitler is the greatest man who ever lived. He truly is without fault, so simple and at the same time possessed of masculine strength."[47] On 31 August 1938, Olympia won the Mussolini cup at the Venice Film Festival as "Best foreign film".[38] She arrived in New York City on 4 November 1938, five days before Kristallnacht (the "Night of the Broken Glass").[48] When news of the event reached the United States,[48] Riefenstahl publicly defended Hitler.[48] On 18 November, she was received by Henry Ford in Detroit. Olympia was shown at the Chicago Engineers Club two days later.[48] Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee, praised the film and held Riefenstahl in the highest regard.[49] She negotiated with Louis B. Mayer, and on 8 December, Walt Disney brought her on a three-hour tour showing her the ongoing production of Fantasia.[48]

From the Goebbels Diaries, researchers learned that Riefenstahl had been friendly with Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda, attending the opera with them and going to his parties.[47] Riefenstahl maintained that Goebbels was upset when she rejected his advances and was jealous of her influence on Hitler, seeing her as an internal threat.[24] She therefore insisted his diary entries could not be trusted.[24] By later accounts, Goebbels thought highly of Riefenstahl's filmmaking but was angered with what he saw as her overspending of Nazi-provided filmmaking budgets.[24]

### Iconography

[edit]

In Triumph of the Will, Tom Saunders argues that Hitler serves as the object of the camera's gaze. Saunders writes, "Without denying that 'rampant masculinity' (the 'sexiness' of Hitler and the SS) serves as the object of the gaze, I would suggest that desire is also directed toward the feminine. This occurs not in the familiar sequences of adoring women greeting Hitler's arrival and cavalcade through Nuremberg. In these Hitler clearly remains the focus of attraction, as more generally in the visual treatment of his mass following. Rather, it is encoded in representation of flags and banners, which were shot in such a way as to make them visually desirable as well as potent political symbols".[50] The flag serves as a symbol of masculinity, equated with national pride and dominance, that supposedly channels men's sexual and masculine energy. Riefenstahl's cinematic framing of the flags encapsulated its iconography. Saunders continues, "The effect is a significant double transformation: the images mechanize human beings and breathe life into flags. Even when the carriers are not mostly submerged under the sea of colored cloth, and when facial features are visible in profile, they attain neither character nor distinctiveness. The men remain ants in a vast enterprise. By contrast and paradoxically, the flags, whether a few or hundreds peopling the frame, assume distinct identities".[50]

### Use of music

[edit]

Riefenstahl distorts the diegetic sound in Triumph of the Will. Her distortion of sound suggests she was influenced by German art cinema. Influenced by Classical Hollywood cinema's style, German art film employed music to enhance the narrative, establish a sense of grandeur, and to heighten the emotions in a scene. In Triumph of the Will, Riefenstahl used traditional folk music to accompany and intensify her shots. Ben Morgan comments on Riefenstahl's distortion of sound: "In Triumph of the Will, the material world leaves no aural impression beyond the music. Where the film does combine diegetic noise with the music, the effects used are human (laughter or cheering) and offer a rhythmic extension to the music rather than a contrast to it. By replacing diegetic sound, Riefenstahl's film employs music to combine the documentary with the fantastic."[51]

### World War II

[edit]

The controversial photo taken on 12 (for some other sources, 5) September 1939 in Końskie, Poland, in which Riefenstahl is crying and is visibly shocked

When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Riefenstahl was photographed in Poland wearing a military uniform and a pistol on her belt in the company of German soldiers; she had gone to Poland as a war correspondent.[52][24] On 12 September, she was in the town of Końskie when 30 civilians were executed in retaliation for an alleged attack on German soldiers.[53] According to her memoir, Riefenstahl tried to intervene but a furious German soldier held her at gunpoint and threatened to shoot her on the spot.[24] She said she did not realize the victims were Jews.[24] According to another account given by a German officer, Riefenstahl had asked that the Jews be removed from the market, which was relayed to the soldiers as "Get rid of the Jews", thus leading to the massacre.[54] Photographs of a distraught Riefenstahl survive from that day.[24] Nevertheless, by 5 October 1939, Riefenstahl was back in occupied Poland filming Hitler's victory parade in Warsaw.[53] Afterwards, she left Poland and chose not to make any more Nazi-related films.[55]

Riefenstahl as a war correspondent in Poland, 1939

On 14 June 1940, the day Paris was declared an open city by the French and occupied by German troops, Riefenstahl wrote to Hitler in a telegram, "With indescribable joy, deeply moved and filled with burning gratitude, we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany's greatest victory, the entry of German troops into Paris. You exceed anything human imagination has the power to conceive, achieving deeds without parallel in the history of mankind. How can we ever thank you?"[53] She later explained, "Everyone thought the war was over, and in that spirit I sent the cable to Hitler".[56] Riefenstahl was friends with Hitler for 12 years.[57] However, her relationship with Hitler severely declined in 1944 after her brother died on the Russian Front.[55]

After the Nuremberg rallies trilogy and Olympia, Riefenstahl began work on the movie she had tried and failed to direct once before, namely Tiefland.[58][15] On Hitler's direct order, the German government paid her 7 million ℛ︁ℳ︁ in compensation.[59] From 23 September until 13 November 1940, she filmed in Krün near Mittenwald.[58] The extras playing Spanish women and farmers were drawn from Romani detained in a camp at Salzburg-Maxglan who were forced to work with her.[58] Filming at the Babelsberg Studios near Berlin began 18 months later in April 1942.[58] This time Sinti and Roma people from the Marzahn detention camp near Berlin were compelled to work as extras.[58] Almost to the end of her life, despite overwhelming evidence that the concentration camp occupants that had been forced to work on the movie were later sent to the Auschwitz death camp, Riefenstahl continued to maintain that all the film extras survived.[60][57] Riefenstahl sued filmmaker Nina Gladitz, who said Riefenstahl personally chose the extras at their holding camp; Gladitz had found one of the Romani survivors and matched his memory with stills of the movie for a documentary Gladitz was filming.[61] The German court ruled largely in favour of Gladitz, declaring that Riefenstahl had known the extras were from a concentration camp, but they also agreed that Riefenstahl had not been informed the Romani would be sent to Auschwitz after filming was completed.[61]

Riefenstahl instructing her film crew in Poland, 1939

This issue came up again in 2002, when Riefenstahl was 100 years old and she was taken to court by a Roma group for denying the Nazis had exterminated Romani.[62] Riefenstahl apologized and said, "I regret that Sinti and Roma [people] had to suffer during the period of National Socialism. It is known today that many of them were murdered in concentration camps".[62]

In October 1944 the production of Tiefland moved to Barrandov Studios in Prague for interior filming.[14] Lavish sets made these shots some of the most costly of the film.[14] The film was not edited and released until almost ten years later.[14]

The last time Riefenstahl saw Hitler was when she married Peter Jacob on 21 March 1944.[56] Riefenstahl and Jacob divorced in 1946.[63] As Germany's military situation became impossible by early 1945, Riefenstahl left Berlin and was hitchhiking with a group of men, trying to reach her mother, when she was taken into custody by American troops.[14] She walked out of a holding camp, beginning a series of escapes and arrests across the chaotic landscape.[14] At last making it back home on a bicycle, she found that American troops had seized her house.[14] She was surprised by how kindly they treated her.[14]

### Thwarted film projects

[edit]

Most of Riefenstahl's unfinished projects were lost towards the end of the war.[14] The French government confiscated all of her editing equipment, along with the production reels of Tiefland.[14] After years of legal wrangling, these were returned to her, but the French government had reportedly damaged some of the film stock while trying to develop and edit it, with a few important scenes being missing (although Riefenstahl was surprised to find the original negatives for Olympia in the same shipment).[14] During the filming of Olympia, Riefenstahl was funded by the state to create her own production company in her own name, Riefenstahl-Film GmbH, which was uninvolved with her most influential works.[35] She edited and dubbed the remaining material and Tiefland premiered on 11 February 1954 in Stuttgart.[14] However, it was denied entry into the Cannes Film Festival.[14] Although Riefenstahl lived for almost another half century, Tiefland was her last feature film.[64]

Riefenstahl filming a difficult scene with the help of two assistants, 1936

Riefenstahl tried many times to make more films during the 1950s and 1960s, but was met with resistance, public protests and sharp criticism.[14] Many of her filmmaking peers in Hollywood had fled Nazi Germany and were unsympathetic to her.[14] Although both film professionals and investors were willing to support her work, most of the projects she attempted were stopped owing to ever-renewed and highly negative publicity about her past work in Nazi Germany.[14]

In 1954, Jean Cocteau, who greatly admired the film, insisted on Tiefland being shown at the Cannes Film Festival, which he was running that year.[19] In 1960, Riefenstahl attempted to prevent filmmaker Erwin Leiser from juxtaposing scenes from Triumph des Willens with footage from concentration camps in his film Mein Kampf.[19] Riefenstahl had high hopes for a collaboration with Cocteau called Friedrich und Voltaire ("Friedrich and Voltaire"), wherein Cocteau was to play two roles.[65] They thought the film might symbolize the love-hate relationship between Germany and France.[65] Cocteau's illness and 1963 death put an end to the project.[65] A musical remake of Das Blaue Licht ("The Blue Light") with an English production company also fell apart.[66]

In the 1960s, Riefenstahl became interested in Africa from Ernest Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa and from the photographs of George Rodger.[67][55] She visited Kenya for the first time in 1956 and later Sudan, where she photographed Nuba tribes with whom she sporadically lived, learning about their culture so she could photograph them more easily.[67] Even though her film project about modern slavery entitled Die Schwarze Fracht ("The Black Cargo") was never completed, Riefenstahl was able to sell the stills from the expedition to magazines in various parts of the world.[67] While scouting shooting locations, she almost died from injuries received in a truck accident.[14] After waking up from a coma in a Nairobi hospital, she finished writing the script, but was soon thoroughly thwarted by uncooperative locals, the Suez Canal crisis and bad weather.[14] In the end, the film project was called off.[14] Even so, Riefenstahl was granted Sudanese citizenship for her services to the country, becoming the first foreigner to receive a Sudanese passport.[68]

## Detention and trials

[edit]

Novelist and sports writer Budd Schulberg, assigned by the U.S. Navy to the OSS for intelligence work while attached to John Ford's documentary unit, was ordered to arrest Riefenstahl at her chalet in Kitzbühel, ostensibly to have her identify Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by the Allied troops shortly after the war.[69] Riefenstahl said she was not aware of the nature of the internment camps.[70] According to Schulberg, "She gave me the usual song and dance. She said, 'Of course, you know, I'm really so misunderstood. I'm not political'".[70]

Riefenstahl said she was fascinated by the Nazis, but also politically naive, claiming ignorance about any war crimes.[71] Such claims were not unambiguously dispelled until 2024, testifying to Riefenstahl's successful campaign of denial over six decades.[72] Throughout 1945 to 1948, she was held by various Allied-controlled prison camps across Germany.[71] She was also under house arrest for a period of time.[71] She was tried four times by postwar authorities for denazification and eventually found to be a "fellow traveller" (Mitläufer) who sympathised with the Nazis.[71] While never an official member of the Nazi party, she was always seen in association due to the propaganda films she made in Nazi Germany.[73] Over the years, she filed and won over fifty libel cases against people who had accused her of complicity with Nazi crimes.[73]

Riefenstahl said that her biggest regret in life was meeting Hitler, declaring, "It was the biggest catastrophe of my life. Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?'"[71] Even though she went on to win up to fifty libel cases, details about her relation to the Nazi party remained unclear during her lifetime.[71]

Shortly before she died, Riefenstahl voiced her final words on the subject of her connection to Hitler in a BBC interview: "I was one of millions who thought Hitler had all the answers. We saw only the good things; we didn't know bad things were to come."[74]

In October 2024, Andres Veiel and Sandra Maischberger released a documentary based on Riefenstahl's legacy document collection of 700 archive boxes, in which Riefenstahl's early knowledge of Nazi atrocities are clearly documented. As of 1948, however, Riefenstahl consistently denied all knowledge and presented herself as a victim.[72]

## Africa, photography, books and final film

[edit]

Riefenstahl began a lifelong companionship with her cameraman Horst Kettner [fr], who was 40 years her junior and assisted her with the photographs; they were together from the time she was 60 and he was 20.[75]

Riefenstahl travelled to Africa, inspired by the works of George Rodger that celebrated the ceremonial wrestling matches of the Nuba.[73] Riefenstahl's books with photographs of the Nuba tribes were published in 1974 and republished in 1976 as Die Nuba (translated as "The Last of the Nuba") and Die Nuba von Kau ("The Nuba People of Kau"). They were harshly criticized by American writer and critic Susan Sontag, who wrote in The New York Review of Books that they were evidence of Riefenstahl's continued adherence to "fascist aesthetics".[76][77][78] In this review, which art critic Hilton Kramer described as "one of the most important inquiries into the relation of esthetics to ideology we have had in many years",[77] Sontag argued that:

> Although the Nuba are black, not Aryan, Riefenstahl's portrait of them is consistent with some of the larger themes of Nazi ideology: the contrast between the clean and the impure, the incorruptible and the defiled, the physical and the mental, the joyful and the critical. [...] What is distinctive about the fascist version of the old idea of the Noble Savage is its contempt for all that is reflective, critical, and pluralistic. [...] In celebrating a society where the exhibition of physical skill and courage and the victory of the stronger man over the weaker have, at least as she sees it, become the unifying symbol of the communal culture—where success in fighting is the "main aspiration of a man's life"—Riefenstahl seems only to have modified the ideas of her Nazi films.[76]

In December 1974, American writer and photographer Eudora Welty reviewed Die Nuba positively for the New York Times, giving an impressionistic account of the aesthetics of Riefenstahl's book:

> She uses the light purposefully: the full, blinding brightness to make us see the all‐absorbing blackness of the skin; the ray of light slanting down from the single hole, high in the wall, that is the doorway of the circular house, which tells us how secret and safe it has been made; the first dawn light streaking the face of a calf in the sleeping camp where the young men go to live, which suggests their world apart. All the pictures bring us the physical beauty of the people: a young girl, shy and mischievous of face, with a bead sewn into her lower lip like a permanent cinnamon drop; a wrestler prepared for his match, with his shaven head turned to look over the massive shoulder, all skin color taken away by a coating of ashes.[79]

Art Director's Club of Germany awarded Riefenstahl a gold medal for the best photographic achievement of 1975.[80] She also sold some of the pictures to German magazines.[14]

Riefenstahl photographed the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, and rock star Mick Jagger along with his wife Bianca for The Sunday Times.[19] Years later, Riefenstahl photographed Las Vegas entertainers Siegfried & Roy.[81] She was guest of honour at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.[82]

In 1978, Riefenstahl published a book of her sub-aquatic photographs called Korallengärten ("Coral Gardens"), followed by the 1990 book Wunder unter Wasser ("Wonder under Water").[83] On 22 August 2002, her 100th birthday, she released the film Impressionen unter Wasser ("Underwater Impressions"), an idealized documentary of life in the oceans and her first film in over 25 years.[53] Riefenstahl was a member of Greenpeace for eight years.[84] When filming Impressionen unter Wasser, Riefenstahl lied about her age in order to be certified for scuba diving.[73]

Riefenstahl survived a helicopter crash in Sudan in 2000 while trying to learn the fates of her Nuba friends during the Second Sudanese Civil War, and was airlifted to a Munich hospital, where she received treatment for two broken ribs.[85][55]

## Death

[edit]

Riefenstahl's grave in Munich Waldfriedhof

Riefenstahl celebrated her 101st birthday on 22 August 2003 at a hotel in Feldafing, on Lake Starnberg, Bavaria, near her home. The day after her birthday celebration, she became ill.[86]

Riefenstahl had been diagnosed with cancer for some time, and her health rapidly deteriorated during the last weeks of her life.[87] Kettner said in an interview in 2002, "Ms. Riefenstahl is in great pain and she has become very weak and is taking painkillers".[88] Riefenstahl died in her sleep at around 10:00 pm on 8 September 2003 at her home in Pöcking.[89] After cremation, her ashes were buried in Munich Waldfriedhof.[90]

After her death, there was a varied response in the obituary pages of leading publications, although most recognized her technical breakthroughs in filmmaking.[55]

Gisela Jahn, Leni Riefenstahl's former secretary and sole heir, donated the estate bequeathed to her to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Items included photographs, films, manuscripts, letters, files, and documents dating back to the 1920s.[91]

## Reception

[edit]

Riefenstahl claimed in her memoir that Hitler made advances on her at their first meeting in May 1932. Her press secretary Ernst Jaeger came with her to the United States in 1938, but did not return to Germany. He published How Riefenstahl became Hitler's girlfriend in the Hollywood Tribune in 1939. Trenker sold a fake version of Eva Braun's diary, which included stories of Riefenstahl dancing naked for Hitler, to the press. The book was published in French in 1948, and translated to Italian and English. Fritz Wiedemann, the personal adjutant to Hitler, stated that Riefenstahl "was never Hitler's lover".[92]

According to Taylor Downing, Riefenstahl's Nazi-era work "made it acceptable, even desirable, for millions of Germans to go along with Hitler. And in promoting the Nazi leadership, there is a direct line from her infamous Nazi party films to Auschwitz and Belsen."[93] Similarly, Abraham Cooper argues that Riefenstahl's work was essential to the carrying out of the mission of the Holocaust and describes her as an "unindicted co-conspirator."[94]

Film scholar Mark Cousins notes in his book The Story of Film that, "Next to Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock, Leni Riefenstahl was the most technically talented Western film maker of her era."[95]

When traveling to Hollywood to showcase her film Olympia shortly after the coordinated attack on German Jews known as Kristallnacht, Riefenstahl was criticized by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League and others.[96]

Reviewer Gary Morris called Riefenstahl, "An artist of unparalleled gifts, a woman in an industry dominated by men, one of the great formalists of the cinema on a par with Eisenstein or Welles."[97] Film critic Hal Erickson of The New York Times states that the "Jewish Question" is mainly unmentioned in Triumph des Willens; "filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl prefers to concentrate on cheering crowds, precision marching, military bands, and Hitler's climactic speech, all orchestrated, choreographed and illuminated on a scale that makes Griffith and DeMille look like poverty-row directors."[98]

Charles Moore of The Daily Telegraph wrote, "She was perhaps the most talented female cinema director of the 20th century; her celebration of Nazi Germany in film ensured that she was certainly the most infamous."[55]

Film journalist Sandra Smith from The Independent remarked, "Opinions will be divided between those who see her as a young, talented and ambitious woman caught up in the tide of events which she did not fully understand, and those who believe her to be a cold and opportunist propagandist and a Nazi by association."[99]

Critic Judith Thurman said in The New Yorker that, "Riefenstahl's genius has rarely been questioned, even by critics who despise the service to which she lent it. Riefenstahl was a consummate stylist obsessed with bodies in motion, particularly those of dancers and athletes. Riefenstahl relies heavily for her transitions on portentous cutaways to butts, mist, statuary, foliage, and rooftops. Her reaction shots have a tedious sameness: shining, ecstatic faces—nearly all young and Aryan, except for Hitler's."[100]

Pauline Kael, also a film reviewer employed for The New Yorker, called Triumph des Willens and Olympia, "the two greatest films ever directed by a woman".[75]

Writer Richard Corliss wrote in Time that he was "impressed by Riefenstahl's standing as a total auteur: producer, writer, director, editor and, in the fiction films, actress. The issues her films and her career raise are as complex and they are important, and her vilifiers tend to reduce the argument to one of a director's complicity in atrocity or her criminal ignorance."[75]

In 2002, Steven Bach wrote that "Riefenstahl disturbs because she remains the adamant, fierce, glib voice of the 'how could we have known?' defense, an argument fewer and fewer Germans, and almost none of the current generation, still feel comfortable making."[9]

## Film biographies

[edit]

In 1993, Riefenstahl was the subject of the award-winning German documentary film The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, directed by Ray Müller.[101] Riefenstahl appeared in the film and answered several questions and detailed the production of her films.[101][102] The biofilm was nominated for seven Emmy Awards, winning in one category.[101] Riefenstahl, who for some time had been working on her memoirs, decided to cooperate in the production of this documentary to tell her life story about the struggles she had gone through in her personal life, her film-making career and what people thought of her.[102] She was also the subject of Müller's 2000 documentary film Leni Riefenstahl: Her Dream of Africa, about her return to Sudan to visit the Nuba people.[85]

In 2000, Jodie Foster was planning a biographical drama on Riefenstahl, then seen as the last surviving member of Hitler's "inner circle", causing protests, with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's dean Marvin Hier warning against a revisionist view that glorified the director, observing that Riefenstahl had seemed "quite infatuated" with Hitler.[103] In 2007, British screenwriter Rupert Walters was reported to be writing a script for the movie.[53] The project did not receive Riefenstahl's approval prior to her death, as Riefenstahl asked for a veto on any scenes to which she did not agree.[53] Riefenstahl reportedly wanted Sharon Stone to play her rather than Foster.[53]

In 2011, director Steven Soderbergh revealed that he had also been working on a biopic of Riefenstahl for about six months.[104] He eventually abandoned the project over concerns of its commercial prospects.[104]

In 2024, director Andres Veiel released a biopic titled Riefenstahl. It premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival,[105][38] and was also screened at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024.[106]

## In popular culture

[edit]

Riefenstahl was portrayed by Zdena Studenková in Leni, a 2014 Slovak drama play about her fictional participation in The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.[107] She was portrayed by Dutch actress Carice van Houten in Race, a sports drama film directed by Stephen Hopkins about Jesse Owens. It was released in North America on 19 February 2016.[108]

In the 2016 short film Leni. Leni., based on the play by Tom McNab and directed by Adrian Vitoria, Hildegard Neil portrays Riefenstahl.[109] In 2021, she was the subject of Nigel Farndale's novel The Dictator's Muse.[110]

At the 2024 Venice Film Festival, the documentary Riefenstahl was launched by director Andres Veiel and produced by Sandra Maischberger.[111][112] The feature points to the filmmaker's ideological affinity with Nazism.[113][114]

## Filmography

[edit]

Riefenstahl at work on Tiefland in 1940

### Filmography

[edit]

Year  | Title  | Director | Writer | Producer | Editor | Notes

|
|
|
|
|
|

1932 | The Blue Light | Yes | Story | Yes | Yes | Narrative feature film
1933 | The Victory of Faith | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Propagandistic documentary film for the Nazi Party
1935 | Triumph of the Will | Yes | Yes | Yes | Uncredited
Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Propagandistic documentary medium-length film for the Nazi Party that was considered lost until 1970
1938 | Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Documentary film about the 1936 Olympic Games
Olympia Part Two: Beauty of the Festival | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes
1954 | Tiefland | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Narrative feature film
2002 | Impressions Under Water | Yes | No | No | Yes | Documentary medium-length film about the bottom of the sea
Also co-cinematographer and final film.

### Acting roles

[edit]

* 1925: Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit ("Ways to Strength and Beauty") as Dancer
* 1926: Der heilige Berg ("The Holy Mountain") as Diotima
* 1927: Der große Sprung ("The Great Leap") as Gita
* 1928: Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg ("Fate of the House of Habsburg") as Maria Vetsera
* 1929: Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü ("The White Hell of Pitz Palu") as Maria Maioni
* 1930: Stürme über dem Mont Blanc ("Storm Over Mont Blanc") as Hella Armstrong
* 1931: Der weiße Rausch ("The White Ecstasy") as Leni
* 1932: Das blaue Licht ("The Blue Light") as Junta
* 1933: S.O.S. Eisberg ("S.O.S. Iceberg") as Hella, wife of Arctic expedition leader Carl Lorenz
* 1954: Tiefland ("Lowlands") as Martha, a Spanish dancer (final film role)

## Books

[edit]

* Riefenstahl, Leni (1973). Die Nuba [The Last of the Nuba]. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-13642-0.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (1976). Die Nuba von Kau [The Nuba People of Kau]. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-16963-3.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (1978). Korallengärten [Coral Gardens]. Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0-06-013591-1.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (1982). Mein Afrika [Vanishing Africa]. Harmony Books. ISBN 978-0-517-54914-8.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (1987). Leni Riefenstahl's Memoiren [Leni Riefenstahl's Memoir]. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-0834-4.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (1990). Wunder unter Wasser [Wonders under Water]. Herbig. ISBN 978-3-7766-1651-4.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (1995). Leni Riefenstahl: a memoir. New York: Picador. ISBN 9780312119263. (reviewed by bell hooks[115])
* Riefenstahl, Leni (2002). Africa. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-1616-5.
* Riefenstahl, Leni (2002). Riefenstahl Olympia. Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8228-1945-6.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Leni Riefenstahl". Filmmuseum Potsdam (in German).
2. ^ "Leni Riefenstahl ou le talent artistique au service d'une entreprise de mort – La cinéaste officielle du régime hitlérien aura cent ans le 22 août. Un destin qui épouse l'histoire du XXe siècle et pose la question des liens entre esthétique et idéologie" [Leni Riefenstahl or artistic talent at the service of an enterprise of death – The official filmmaker of the Hitler regime will be one hundred years old on August 22. A destiny that embraces the history of the 20th century and raises the question of the links between aesthetics and ideology]. Le Monde (in French). 15 August 2002.
3. ^ "La cinéaste allemande Leni Riefenstahl est morte – La réalisatrice allemande Leni Riefenstahl, qui mit sa caméra au service d'Hitler, est décédée lundi soir à l'âge de 101 ans, selon une journaliste se présentant comme très proche" [German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl is dead – German director Leni Riefenstahl, who put her camera at the service of Hitler, died Monday evening at the age of 101, according to a journalist presenting herself as very close]. Le Monde (in French). 9 September 2003.
4. ^ "Leni Riefenstahl, artiste asservie au nazisme" [Leni Riefenstahl, artist enslaved to Nazism]. Le Monde (in French). 10 September 2003. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
5. ^ Barker, Jennifer (2010). "Indifference, Identification, and Desire in Virginia Woolf's Three Guineas, Leni Riefenstahl's The Blue Light and Triumph of the Will, and Leontine Sagan's Maedchen in Uniform". Women in German Yearbook. 26 (1). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press: 73–96\. doi:10.5250/womgeryearbook.26.1.0073. JSTOR 10.5250/womgeryearbook.26.1.0073. S2CID 142865328.
6. ^ a b c d e f Downing 2012, p. 23.
7. ^ Scheinberg, Robert (4 September 1997). "Award to German filmmaker spurs debate on her role as propagandist". JTA News. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 27 February 2017. "'Without the Riefenstahls of the world in the 1930s, the Shoah might not have happened. I would consider her an unindicted co-conspirator.' (Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center)"
8. ^ Obituary Leni Riefenstahl The Guardian
9. ^ a b Bach, Steven (Autumn 2002). "The Puzzle of Leni Riefenstahl". The Wilson Quarterly. 26 (4): 43–46\. JSTOR 40260668. "Riefenstahl disturbs because she remains the adamant, fierce, glib voice of the 'how could we have known?' defense, an argument fewer and fewer Germans, and almost none of the current generation, still feel comfortable making."
10. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (13 May 2007). "Triumph of Willful Blindness to the Horror of History". The New York Times. "Riefenstahl would repeatedly ignore or deny news reports of anti-Semitic atrocities in Germany. Mr. Bach reports that she claimed not to believe reports about Kristallnacht, shrugging it off as slander on her homeland, and that during a 1938–39 trip to the United States, she told a reporter that as an artist she could not be expected to know about events, even if the rest of the world did. ... In 1940, with the fall of Paris, Riefenstahl wrote Hitler an ecstatic telegram: 'With indescribable joy, deeply moved and filled with burning gratitude, we share with you, my Führer, your and Germany's greatest victory, the entry of German troops into Paris. You exceed anything human imagination has the power to conceive, achieving deeds without parallel in the history of mankind.' This from a woman who wanted history to see her simply as an artist, who falsely denied ever making anti-Semitic statements, who implausibly claimed she knew next to nothing about Hitler's persecution of the Jews, a woman who never acknowledged moral accountability for the role her movies played in promoting Hitler and his cause ... ."
11. ^ Connolly, Kate (9 December 2021). "Burying Leni Riefenstahl: one woman's lifelong crusade against Hitler's favourite film-maker". The Guardian. "Jürgen Trimborn, author of a highly critical biography published in 2002, declared that there was "no evidence that, due to her proximity to the regime, Riefenstahl knew more than others did about the mass annihilation of the Jews. But it is obvious that, like most Germans, she knew enough to be sure that it was better not to know even more." (Gladitz would later judge this analysis as far too generous.)"
12. ^ "Leni Riefenstahl". encyclopedia.ushmm.org. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
13. ^ Trimborn 2002, p. 20.
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad University of Washington 2008.
15. ^ a b Trimborn 2007.
16. ^ Rother 2003, p. 112.
17. ^ a b Salkeld 2011, p. 2.
18. ^ "Leni Riefenstahl – Biography". 19 June 2021. Archived from the original on 19 June 2021. Retrieved 9 November 2024.
19. ^ a b c d Falcon 2003.
20. ^ a b Infield 1976, pp. 14–16.
21. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Langford 2012, p. 20.
22. ^ Rainer, Rother (1 October 2002). Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius (Reprint ed.). Continuum; Reprint edition. pp. 27–28.
23. ^ Langford 2012, p. 77.
24. ^ a b c d e f g h i James 2007.
25. ^ a b c Hinton 2000, p. 19.
26. ^ a b Müller 1999.
27. ^ Salkeld 2011, pp. 14–16.
28. ^ Petro, Patrice (2010). Idols of Modernity: Movie Stars of the 1920s. Camden, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. p. 278\. ISBN 978-0813547329.
29. ^ Niven 2018, p. 53.
30. ^ a b Hinton, David (1978). The Films of Leni Riefenstahl. Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press. pp. 27–29\. ISBN 978-0-8108-1141-6.
31. ^ Riefenstahl, Leni (1987). Leni Riefenstahl – A Memoir. New York City: Picador. p. 150\. ISBN 978-0-312-11926-3.
32. ^ a b c Hinton 2000, p. 20.
33. ^ The History Place 2001.
34. ^ Scott, Ian (2009). "Frank Capra and Leni Riefenstahl: Politics, Propaganda and the Personal". Comparative American Studies. 7 (4): 285–297\. doi:10.1179/147757009x12571600892054. S2CID 153372214.
35. ^ a b c Tegel, Susan (2003). "Leni Riefenstahl's 'Gypsy Question'". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 23 (1). London, England: Routledge: 3–10\. doi:10.1080/0143968022000055230. S2CID 191561991.
36. ^ a b Hinton 2000, pp. 21–22.
37. ^ Hinton 2000, p. 21.
38. ^ a b c d Brooks, Xan (29 August 2024). "Riefenstahl review – deep-dive study takes down the Nazis' favourite director. Venice film festival 2024". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
39. ^ a b Rother 2003, p. 238.
40. ^ Aitken 2013, p. 760.
41. ^ a b c d Tomlinson 2012, pp. 74–76.
42. ^ Tegel, Susan (2006). "Leni Riefenstahl's Gypsy Question Revisited: The Gypsy Extras In Tiefland". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 26 (1). London, England: Routledge: 21–43\. doi:10.1080/01439680500533375. S2CID 191423623.
43. ^ a b c Andrew 1999, pp. 183–184.
44. ^ "Leni Riefenstahl". Jewish Virtual Library.
45. ^ Edmondson 2007, p. 72.
46. ^ F-R Publishing Corporation 2007.
47. ^ a b Rollyson 2007.
48. ^ a b c d e Graham 1993.
49. ^ Bernstein 2013, p. 111.
50. ^ a b Saunders, Tom (7 March 2007). "Filming the Nazi Flag: Leni Riefenstahl and the Cinema of National Arousal". Quarterly Review of Film and Video. 33 (1). London, England: Routledge: 23–45\. doi:10.1080/10509208.2015.1094329. S2CID 194205755.
51. ^ Morgan, Ben (15 September 2006). "Music in Nazi Film: How Different is Triumph of the Will?". Studies in European Cinema. 3 (1). Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor & Francis: 37–53\. doi:10.1386/seci.3.1.37/1 (inactive 1 July 2025). S2CID 191330845.`{{cite journal}}`: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)
52. ^ Robert 2013.
53. ^ a b c d e f g Harris 2007.
54. ^ Connolly, Kate (28 August 2024). "Film suggests Nazis' lead propagandist had role in 1939 massacre". The Guardian.
55. ^ a b c d e f Moore 2003.
56. ^ a b Riding 2003.
57. ^ a b Mathews.
58. ^ a b c d e Kenrick 2006, p. 197.
59. ^ ""Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (August 22 1902 – September 8 2003)"".
60. ^ Trimborn 2008, pp. 206–208.
61. ^ a b Taylor 2007.
62. ^ a b Connolly 2002.
63. ^ Heck-Rabi 1984, p. 126.
64. ^ BBC News 2005.
65. ^ a b c Hinton 2000, p. 135.
66. ^ Hinton 2000, p. 136.
67. ^ a b c Rhiel, O'Sickey & Pages 2008, p. 244.
68. ^ Salkeld 2011, p. 253.
69. ^ Salkeld 2011, p. Chapter 17, pp. 1–3.
70. ^ a b Kennicott 2005.
71. ^ a b c d e f The Scotsman 2012.
72. ^ a b Veiel, Andres (31 October 2024). "ORF-Radiothek: Interview with Andres Veiel". oe1.orf.at. Retrieved 1 November 2024.
73. ^ a b c d "Leni Riefenstahl". holocaustresearchproject.org.
74. ^ Higham, Nick (23 October 2000). "The five lives of Leni Riefenstahl". BBC News. Retrieved 1 February 2025.
75. ^ a b c Corliss 2002.
76. ^ a b Sontag 1975.
77. ^ a b Kramer 1975.
78. ^ Tyree 2013
79. ^ Welty, Eudora (1 December 1974). "Africa And Paris And Russia". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 December 2020.
80. ^ Rother 2003, p. 231.
81. ^ Leni Riefenstahl 2001.
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83. ^ BBC News 2002.
84. ^ Steinberg 2003.
85. ^ a b BBC News 2001.
86. ^ Davis 2003.
87. ^ ""Leni Riefenstahl (Helene Riefenstahl)"".
88. ^ Fantz 2002.
89. ^ Rhiel, O'Sickey & Pages 2008, p. 245.
90. ^ "Selection of famous burials in Munich (German)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 April 2009.
91. ^ Hickley, Catherine (13 February 2018). "Estate of Nazi propaganda film-maker, Leni Riefenstahl, donated to Berlin museums". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 22 March 2022.
92. ^ Niven 2018, pp. 53–55.
93. ^ Downing, Taylor (28 April 2007). "Leni: fully exposed". The Guardian.
94. ^ Scheinberg, Robert (4 September 1997). "Award to German filmmaker spurs debate on her role as propagandist". JTA News. Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 27 February 2017. "'Without the Riefenstahls of the world in the 1930s, the Shoah might not have happened. I would consider her an unindicted co-conspirator.' (Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center)"
95. ^ World Press Review 2014.
96. ^ Graham, Cooper C. (1993). "'Olympia' in America, 1938 : Leni Riefenstahl, Hollywood, and the Kristallnacht". Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. 13 (4). London, England: Routledge: 433. doi:10.1080/01439689300260351.
97. ^ Morris 1999.
98. ^ Erickson.
99. ^ Smith 2003.
100. ^ Thurman 2007.
101. ^ a b c Gale 2007, p. 3276.
102. ^ a b Ebert Ebert.
103. ^ Davis, Simon (5 October 2000). "Jodie Foster film about Hitler aide angers Jews". Daily Telegraph. London, England: Telegraph Media Group. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022.
104. ^ a b Jagernauth 2011.
105. ^ Carey, Matthew (28 August 2024). "In 'Riefenstahl,' A German Director Takes Down Hitler's Favorite Filmmaker, Who Still Appeals To Hollywood — Venice Film Festival". Deadline. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
106. ^ Deb, Deepshikha (30 September 2024). "MAMI Mumbai Film Festival Unveils 2024 Official Lineup". High On Films. Retrieved 18 October 2024.
107. ^ Slovenské Národné Divadlo 2014.
108. ^ Kit 2014.
109. ^ "Cannes Short Film Corner – Leni". We are Moving Stories. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 12 March 2017.
110. ^ Farndale, Nigel. "Leni Riefenstahl: Hitler's muse (And Jagger's friend)".
111. ^ "Riefenstahl". La Biennale di Venezia. 81st Venice International Film Festival. 12 July 2024. Archived from the original on 13 December 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
112. ^ "Filmfestival: Maischberger hält Riefenstahl für überzeugte Faschistin". Der Tagesspiegel Online (in German). 21 August 2024. ISSN 1865-2263. Archived from the original on 2 September 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
113. ^ Rogers, Thomas (6 November 2024). "Filmmaker's Private Archive Rekindles Debate Over Her Nazi Ties". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 November 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
114. ^ "Documentário sugere que Leni Riefenstahl, cineasta do nazismo, contribuiu para massacre de judeus poloneses". O Globo (in Brazilian Portuguese). 28 August 2024. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 25 December 2024.
115. ^ hooks, bell (1997). "Review: the feminazi mystique". Transition Magazine (73). Indiana University Press on behalf of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University: 156–162\. doi:10.2307/2935451. JSTOR 2935451.

## Works cited

[edit]

### Books

[edit]

* Aitken, Ian (2013). The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film. Routledge. ISBN 978-0415596428.
* Andrew, Geoff (1999). The Director's Vision: A Concise Guide to the Art of 250 Great Filmmakers. A Cappella. ISBN 978-1556523663.
* Bach, Steven (2007). Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-31686-111-3.
* Bernstein, Arnie (2013). Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund. Macmillan. ISBN 978-1250036445.
* Edmondson, Jacqueline (2007). Jesse Owens: A Biography. Greenwood Publishing. ISBN 978-0313339882.
* Gale, Thomson (2007). Video Sourcebook: A Guide to Programs Currently Available on Video in the Areas Of: Movies/Entertainment, General Interest/Education, Sports/Recreation, Fine Arts, Heal. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1414400990.
* Heck-Rabi, Louise (1984). Women Filmmakers: A Critical Reception. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810816602.
* Hinton, David (2000). The Films of Leni Riefenstahl. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-1461635062.
* Infield, Glenn (1976). Leni Riefenstahl: the Fallen Film Goddess. Crowell. ISBN 978-0690011678.
* Kenrick, Donald (2006). The Final Chapter. University of Hertfordshire. ISBN 978-1902806495.
* Langford, Michelle (2012). Directory of World Cinema: Germany. Intellect Books. ISBN 978-1841504650.
* Niven, Bill (2018). Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300200362.
* Rhiel, Mary; O'Sickey, Ingeborg; Pages, Neil (2008). Riefenstahl Screened: An Anthology of New Criticism. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1441104533.
* Rother, Rainer (2003). Leni Riefenstahl: The Seduction of Genius. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0826470232.
* Salkeld, Audrey (2011). A Portrait of Leni Riefenstahl. Random House. ISBN 978-1446475270.
* Tomlinson, Alan (2012). National Identity and Global Sports Events: Culture, Politics, and Spectacle in the Olympics and the Football World Cup. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0791482483.
* Trimborn, Jürgen (2008). Leni Riefenstahl: A Life. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0865479760.
* Trimborn, Jürgen (2002). Leni Riefenstahl: Eine deutsche Karriere. Biographie [Leni Riefenstahl: a German career – Biography] (in German). Aufbau Verlag. ISBN 3-351-02536-X.

### Journals

[edit]

* Buruma, Ian (14 June 2007). "Fascinating Narcissim". The New York Review of Books. 54 (10). Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Sontag, Susan (6 February 1976). "Fascinating Fascism". The New York Review of Books. 22 (1). Retrieved 2 June 2015. (The essay was also included in Sontag's 1980 book Under the Sign of Saturn)
* Taylor, Charles (19 April 2007). "Ill Will". The Nation. Retrieved 3 June 2015.

### Magazines

[edit]

* Corliss, Richard (22 August 2002). "That Old Feeling: Leni's Triumph". Time. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Downing, Taylor (8 August 2012). "The Olympics on Film". History Today. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Ross, Harold Wallace; White, Katharine Sergeant Angell (1994). "Moschino". The New Yorker. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Thurman, Judith (29 March 2007). "Where There's a Will: the Rise of Leni Riefenstahl". The New Yorker. Retrieved 7 June 2015.

### Online

[edit]

* "Before Steven Speilberg there Was Leni Riefenstahl!". Crime File News. 28 December 2011. Archived from the original on 22 October 2020. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Connolly, Kate (18 August 2002). "Gypsies' Fate Gaunts Film Muse of Hitler". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
* Davis, David (12 September 2003). "Pro-Nazi Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, 101, Dies". The Forward. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Ebert, Roger (24 June 1994). "The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Erickson, Hal (2014). "Triumph of the Will". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 16 September 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Fantz, Ashley (1 October 2002). "Happy Birthday, Leni Riefenstahl". Salon. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Falcon, Richard (9 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Graham, Cooper (1993). "Olympia in America, 1938: Leni Riefenstahl, Hollywood, and the Kristallnacht" (PDF). Library of Congress. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Harris, Paul (29 April 2007). "Hollywood Tackles Hitler's Leni". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* "Her Films Glorified Hitler now Leni Riefenstahl's Story Hits the Screen". The Scotsman. 11 June 2012. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* "Hitler's Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl Celebrates 101st Birthday". Haaretz. 22 August 2003. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* "Hitler's Filmmaker to Release New Film". BBC News. 7 January 2002. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* James, Clive (25 March 2007). "Reich Star". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Jagernauth, Kevin (11 March 2011). "Steven Soderbergh Reveals He Dropped A Leni Riefenstahl Biopic To Do 'Contagion' Instead". The Playlist. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Kennicott, Phillip (29 November 2005). "Art of Justice: The Filmmakers at Nuremberg". The Washington Post. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
* Kit, Borys (29 September 2014). "'Game of Thrones' Actress to Play Leni Riefenstahl in Jesse Owens Biopic". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
* Kramer, Hilton (9 February 1975). "The Evolution of Susan Sontag". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
* "Leni Riefenstahl 1902–2003". HSC Online (Charles Sturt University). Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
* "Leni Riefenstahl: The Casualty of Triumph". World Press Review. 22 August 2014. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* "Leni Riefenstahl Biography". University of Washington. 2008. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
* "Leni Riefenstahl Biography". Leni Riefenstahl. 2001. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* "Leni Riefenstahl Hurt in Sudan Crash". BBC News. 1 March 2001. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Mathews, Thomas. "Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl, by Steven Bach". The Independent. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
* Morris, Gary (1 November 1999). "Lonesome Leni: Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl". Bright Lights Film Journal. Retrieved 4 January 2008.
* Moore, Charles (10 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
* Müller, Ray (23 March 1999). The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (television documentary). Omega Film GmbH. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* "Nazi Propaganda Photos Withdrawn". BBC News. 25 June 2005. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
* Riding, Alan (10 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl, Film Innovator Tied to Hitler, Dies at 101". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
* Rollyson, Carl (7 March 2007). "Leni Riefenstahl on Trial". The New York Sun. Archived from the original on 14 October 2008. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Sontag, Susan (6 February 1975). "Fascinating Fascism". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
* "American Publicity Tour With Olympia". F-R Publishing Corporation. 2007. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Robert, Douglas (31 August 2013). "The Unrepentant Leni Riefenstahl". Critics at Large. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
* Smith, Sandra (11 September 2003). "What They Said About... Leni Riefenstahl". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Steinberg, Stefan (15 September 2003). "Leni Riefenstahl – Propagandist For the Third Reich". International Committee of the Fourth International. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* "Triumph of the Will". The History Place. 2001. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* Trimborn, Jürgen (25 March 2007). "Leni Riefenstahl". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 June 2015.
* "Valeria Schulczová, Roman Olekšák: Leni" (in Slovak). Slovenské Národné Divadlo (SND). 15 April 2014. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 June 2015.
* Whipp, Glenn (16 August 2009). "Quentin Tarantino's 'Basterds' Is a Glorious Mash-up". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 7 June 2015.

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leni Riefenstahl.

* Official website
* Leni Riefenstahl at Jewish Virtual Library
* Leni Riefenstahl at IMDb
* Newspaper clippings about Leni Riefenstahl in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
* Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will on MoMA Learning

* v
* t
* e

Leni Riefenstahl

Films directed|

* The Blue Light (1932)
* The Victory of Faith (1933)
* Triumph of the Will (1935)
* Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces (1935)
* Olympia (1938)
* Tiefland (1954)
* Impressionen unter Wasser (2002)

Africa-related books|

* The Last of the Nuba (1973)
* The People of Kau (1976)
* Vanishing Africa (1982)

Marine-related books|

* Coral Gardens (1978)
* Wonders under Water (1990)

Memoirs|

* Leni Riefenstahl's Memoiren (1987)

Related|

* Arnold Fanck
* The Wonderful Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993 documentary)
* Leni Riefenstahl: Her Dream of Africa (2000 documentary)
* Race (2016 film)

* v
* t
* e

Underwater diving

* Diving activities
* Diving modes
* Atmospheric pressure diving
* Freediving
* Saturation diving
* Scuba diving
* Snorkeling
* Surface oriented diving
* Surface-supplied diving
* Unmanned diving

Diving equipment

* Cleaning and disinfection of personal diving equipment
* Human factors in diving equipment design
* List of diving equipment manufacturers

| Basic equipment|

* Diving mask
* Snorkel
* Swimfin

|

Breathing gas|

* Bailout gas
* Bottom gas
* Breathing air
* Decompression gas
* Emergency gas supply
* Heliox
* Hydreliox
* Hydrox
* Nitrox
* Oxygen
* Travel gas
* Trimix

Buoyancy and
trim equipment|

* Avelo diving system
* Buoyancy compensator
* Power inflator
* Dump valve
* Variable buoyancy pressure vessel
* Diving weighting system
* Ankle weights
* Integrated weights
* Trim weights
* Weight belt

Decompression
equipment|

* Decompression buoy
* Decompression chamber
* Decompression cylinder
* Decompression trapeze
* Dive computer
* Diving bell
* Diving shot
* Diving stage
* Jersey upline
* Jonline

Diving suit|

* Atmospheric diving suit
* JIM suit
* Newtsuit
* Dry suit
* Sladen suit
* Standard diving suit
* Rash vest
* Wetsuit
* Dive skins
* Hot-water suit

Helmets
and masks|

* Anti-fog
* Diving helmet
* Free-flow helmet
* Lightweight demand helmet
* Orinasal mask
* Reclaim helmet
* Shallow water helmet
* Standard diving helmet
* Diving mask
* Band mask
* Full-face mask
* Half mask

Instrumentation|

* Bottom timer
* Depth gauge
* Dive computer
* Dive timer
* Diving watch
* Helium release valve
* Electro-galvanic oxygen sensor
* Pneumofathometer
* Submersible pressure gauge

Mobility
equipment|

* Diver propulsion vehicle
* Human torpedo
* Wet sub
* Diving bell
* Closed bell
* Wet bell
* Diving stage
* Swimfin
* Monofin
* PowerSwim
* Towboard

Safety
equipment|

* Alternative air source
* Octopus regulator
* Pony bottle
* Bolt snap
* Buddy line
* Dive light
* Diver's cutting tool
* Diver's knife
* Diver's telephone
* Through-water communications
* Underwater acoustic communication
* Diving bell
* Diving safety harness
* Emergency gas supply
* Bailout block
* Bailout bottle
* Lifeline
* Screw gate carabiner
* Emergency locator beacon
* Rescue tether
* Safety helmet
* Shark-proof cage
* Snoopy loop
* Navigation equipment
* Distance line
* Diving compass
* Dive reel
* Line marker
* Surface marker buoy
* Silt screw

Underwater
breathing
apparatus|

* Atmospheric diving suit
* Diving cylinder
* Burst disc
* Scuba cylinder valve
* Diving helmet
* Reclaim helmet
* Diving regulator
* Mechanism of diving regulators
* Regulator malfunction
* Regulator freeze
* Single-hose regulator
* Twin-hose regulator
* Full-face diving mask

| Open-circuit
scuba|

* Scuba set
* Bailout bottle
* Decompression cylinder
* Independent doubles
* Manifolded twin set
* Scuba manifold
* Pony bottle
* Scuba configuration
* Sidemount
* Sling cylinder

|

Diving rebreathers|

* Carbon dioxide scrubber
* Carleton CDBA
* Clearance Divers Life Support Equipment
* Cryogenic rebreather
* CUMA
* DSEA
* Dolphin
* Halcyon PVR-BASC
* Halcyon RB80
* IDA71
* Interspiro DCSC
* LAR-5
* LAR-6
* LAR-V
* LARU
* Mark IV Amphibian
* Porpoise
* Ray
* Siebe Gorman CDBA
* Salvus
* Siva

Surface-supplied
diving equipment|

* Air line
* Diver's umbilical
* Diving air compressor
* Gas panel
* Hookah
* Scuba replacement
* Snuba
* Standard diving dress

Diving
equipment
manufacturers|

* AP Diving
* Apeks
* Aqua Lung America
* Aqua Lung/La Spirotechnique
* Beuchat
* René Cavalero
* Cis-Lunar
* Cressi-Sub
* Dacor
* DESCO
* Dive Xtras
* Divex
* Diving Unlimited International
* Drägerwerk
* Faber
* Fenzy
* Maurice Fernez
* Technisub
* Oscar Gugen
* Heinke
* HeinrichsWeikamp
* Johnson Outdoors
* Mares
* Morse Diving
* Nemrod
* Oceanic Worldwide
* Porpoise
* Shearwater Research
* Siebe Gorman
* Submarine Products
* Suunto

Diving support equipment

| Access equipment|

* Boarding stirrup
* Diver lift
* Diving bell
* Diving ladder
* Diving platform (scuba)
* Diving stage
* Downline
* Jackstay
* Launch and recovery system
* Messenger line
* Moon pool

|

Breathing gas
handling|

* Air filtration
* Activated carbon
* Hopcalite
* Molecular sieve
* Silica gel
* Booster pump
* Carbon dioxide scrubber
* Cascade filling system
* Diver's pump
* Diving air compressor
* Diving air filter
* Water separator
* High pressure breathing air compressor
* Low pressure breathing air compressor
* Gas blending
* Gas blending for scuba diving
* Gas panel
* Gas reclaim system
* Gas storage bank
* Gas storage quad
* Gas storage tube
* Helium analyzer
* Nitrox production
* Membrane gas separation
* Pressure swing adsorption
* Oxygen analyser
* Electro-galvanic oxygen sensor
* Oxygen compatibility

Decompression
equipment|

* Air-lock
* Built-in breathing system
* Decompression tables
* Diving bell
* Bell cursor
* Closed bell
* Clump weight
* Launch and recovery system
* Wet bell
* Diving chamber
* Diving stage
* Recreational Dive Planner
* Saturation system

Platforms|

* Dive boat
* Canoe and kayak diving
* Combat rubber raiding craft
* Liveaboard
* Subskimmer
* Diving support vessel
* HMS Challenger (K07)

| Underwater
habitat|

* Aquarius Reef Base
* Continental Shelf Station Two
* Helgoland Habitat
* Scott Carpenter Space Analog Station
* SEALAB
* Tektite habitat

|

Remotely operated
underwater vehicles|

* 8A4-class ROUV
* ABISMO
* Atlantis ROV Team
* COTSBot
* CURV
* Deep Drone
* Épaulard
* Global Explorer ROV
* Goldfish-class ROUV
* Kaikō ROV
* Kaşif ROUV
* Long-Term Mine Reconnaissance System
* Mini Rover ROV
* OpenROV
* ROV KIEL 6000
* ROV PHOCA
* Scorpio ROV
* Sea Dragon-class ROV
* Seabed tractor
* Seafox drone
* SeaPerch
* SJT-class ROUV
* T1200 Trenching Unit
* VideoRay UROVs

Safety equipment|

* Diver down flag
* Diving shot
* ENOS Rescue-System
* Hyperbaric lifeboat
* Hyperbaric stretcher
* Jackstay
* Jonline
* Reserve gas supply

General|

* Diving spread
* Air spread
* Saturation spread
* Hot water system
* Sonar
* Underwater acoustic positioning system
* Underwater acoustic communication

Freediving

| Activities|

* Aquathlon
* Apnoea finswimming
* Freediving
* Haenyeo
* Pearl hunting
* Ama
* Snorkeling
* Spearfishing
* Underwater football
* Underwater hockey
* Underwater rugby
* Underwater target shooting

|

Competitions|

* Nordic Deep
* Vertical Blue
* Disciplines
* Constant weight (CWT)
* Constant weight bi-fins (CWTB)
* Constant weight without fins (CNF)
* Dynamic apnea (DYN)
* Dynamic apnea without fins (DNF)
* Free immersion (FIM)
* No-limits apnea (NLT)
* Static apnea (STA)
* Skandalopetra diving
* Variable weight apnea (VWT)
* Variable weight apnea without fins

Equipment|

* Diving mask
* Diving suit
* Hawaiian sling
* Polespear
* Snorkel (swimming)
* Speargun
* Swimfins
* Monofin
* Water polo cap

Freedivers|

* Deborah Andollo
* Simone Arrigoni
* Peppo Biscarini
* Michael Board
* Sara Campbell
* Derya Can Göçen
* Goran Čolak
* Carlos Coste
* Robert Croft
* Mandy-Rae Cruickshank
* Yasemin Dalkılıç
* Leonardo D'Imporzano
* Flavia Eberhard
* Şahika Ercümen
* Emma Farrell
* Francisco Ferreras
* Pierre Frolla
* Flavia Eberhard
* Mehgan Heaney-Grier
* Elisabeth Kristoffersen
* Andriy Yevhenovych Khvetkevych
* Loïc Leferme
* Enzo Maiorca
* Jacques Mayol
* Audrey Mestre
* Karol Meyer
* Kate Middleton
* Stéphane Mifsud
* Alexey Molchanov
* Natalia Molchanova
* Dave Mullins
* Patrick Musimu
* Guillaume Néry
* Herbert Nitsch
* Umberto Pelizzari
* Liv Philip
* Annelie Pompe
* Stig Severinsen
* Tom Sietas
* Martin Štěpánek
* Walter Steyn
* Tanya Streeter
* William Trubridge
* Devrim Cenk Ulusoy
* Fatma Uruk
* Danai Varveri
* Alessia Zecchini
* Nataliia Zharkova
* Kateryna Sadurska

Hazards|

* Barotrauma
* Drowning
* Freediving blackout
* Deep-water blackout
* Shallow-water blackout
* Hypercapnia
* Hypothermia

Historical|

* Ama
* Octopus wrestling
* Swimming at the 1900 Summer Olympics – Men's underwater swimming

Organisations|

* AIDA International
* Scuba Schools International
* Australian Underwater Federation
* British Freediving Association
* Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
* Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins
* Performance Freediving International

Professional diving

| Occupations|

* Ama
* Commercial diver
* Commercial offshore diver
* Hazmat diver
* Divemaster
* Diving instructor
* Diving safety officer
* Diving superintendent
* Diving supervisor
* Haenyeo
* Media diver
* Police diver
* Public safety diver
* Scientific diver
* Underwater archaeologist

| Military
diving|

* Army engineer diver
* Canadian Armed Forces Divers
* Clearance diver
* Frogman
* Minentaucher
* Royal Navy ships diver
* United States military divers
* U.S. Navy diver
* U.S.Navy master diver

| Military
diving
units|

* 7th Marine Brigade
* Clearance Diving Branch (RAN)
* Commando Hubert
* Combat Divers Service (Lithuania)
* Comando Raggruppamento Subacquei e Incursori Teseo Tesei
* Decima Flottiglia MAS
* Frogman Corps (Denmark)
* Fuerzas Especiales
* Fukuryu
* GRUMEC
* Grup Gerak Khas
* Jagdkommando
* JW Formoza
* JW GROM
* JW Komandosów
* Kommando Spezialkräfte Marine
* KOPASKA
* MARCOS
* Marine Commandos
* Marinejegerkommandoen
* Marine Raider Regiment
* Minedykkerkommandoen
* Namibian Marine Corps Operational Diving Unit
* Naval Diving Unit (Singapore)
* Naval Service Diving Section
* Naval Special Operations Command
* Operational Diving Division (SA Navy)
* Royal Engineers
* Russian commando frogmen
* Sappers Divers Group
* Shayetet 13
* Special Air Service
* Special Air Service Regiment
* Special Actions Detachment
* Special Boat Service
* Special Boat Squadron (Sri Lanka)
* Special Forces Command (Turkey)
* Special Forces Group (Belgium)
* Special Operations Battalion (Croatia)
* Special Service Group (Navy)
* Special Warfare Diving and Salvage
* Tactical Divers Group
* US Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance
* US Marine Corps Reconnaissance Battalions
* US Navy SEALs
* Underwater Construction Teams
* Underwater Demolition Command
* Underwater Demolition Team
* Underwater Offence (Turkish Armed Forces)
* UNGERIN

|

Underwater
work|

* Commercial offshore diving
* Dive leader
* Diver training
* Recreational diver training
* Hazmat diving
* Hyperbaric welding
* Marine construction
* Offshore construction
* Underwater construction
* Media diving
* Pearl hunting
* Police diving
* Potable water diving
* Public safety diving
* Scientific diving
* Ships husbandry
* Sponge diving
* Submarine pipeline
* Underwater archaeology
* Archaeology of shipwrecks
* Underwater cutting and welding
* Underwater demolition
* Underwater inspection
* Nondestructive testing
* Underwater logging
* Underwater photography
* Underwater search and recovery
* Underwater searches
* Underwater videography
* Underwater survey

| Salvage diving|

* SS Egypt
* Kronan
* La Belle
* SS Laurentic
* RMS Lusitania
* Mars
* Mary Rose
* USS Monitor
* HMS Royal George
* Vasa

|

Diving
contractors|

* COMEX
* Helix Energy Solutions Group
* International Marine Contractors Association

Tools and
equipment|

* Abrasive waterjet
* Airlift
* Baited remote underwater video
* In-water surface cleaning
* Brush cart
* Cavitation cleaning
* Pressure washing
* Pigging
* Hot stab
* Lifting bag
* Remotely operated underwater vehicle
* Thermal lance
* Tremie
* Water jetting

Underwater
weapons|

* Limpet mine
* Speargun
* Hawaiian sling
* Polespear

| Underwater
firearm|

* Gyrojet
* Mk 1 Underwater Defense Gun
* Powerhead
* Underwater pistols
* Heckler & Koch P11
* SPP-1 underwater pistol
* Underwater revolvers
* AAI underwater revolver
* Underwater rifles
* ADS amphibious rifle
* APS underwater rifle
* ASM-DT amphibious rifle
* QBS-06

|

Recreational diving

* Recreational dive sites
* Index of recreational dive sites
* List of wreck diving sites
* Outline of recreational dive sites

| Specialties|

* Altitude diving
* Cave diving
* Deep diving
* Ice diving
* Muck diving
* Open-water diving
* Rebreather diving
* Sidemount diving
* Solo diving
* Technical diving
* Underwater photography
* Wreck diving

|

Diver
organisations|

* British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC)
* Cave Divers Association of Australia (CDAA)
* Cave Diving Group (CDG)
* Comhairle Fo-Thuinn (CFT)
* Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS)
* Federación Española de Actividades Subacuáticas (FEDAS)
* Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins (FFESSM)
* International Association for Handicapped Divers (IAHD)
* Quintana Roo Speleological Survey (QRSS)
* Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP)

Diving tourism
industry|

* Dive center
* Diving in Timor-Leste
* Diving in the Maldives
* Environmental impact of recreational diving
* Scuba diving tourism
* Scuba diving in the Cayman Islands
* Shark tourism
* Sinking ships for wreck diving sites
* Underwater diving in Guam

Diving events
and festivals|

* Diversnight
* Underwater Bike Race

Diving safety

* Human factors in diving equipment design
* Human factors in diving safety
* Life-support system
* Safety-critical system
* Scuba diving fatalities
* Underwater diving emergency
* Water safety
* Water surface searches

| Diving
hazards|

* List of diving hazards and precautions
* Environmental
* Current
* Delta-P
* Entanglement hazard
* Overhead
* Silt out
* Wave action
* Equipment
* Freeflow
* Use of breathing equipment in an underwater environment
* Failure of diving equipment other than breathing apparatus
* Single point of failure
* Physiological
* Cold shock response
* Decompression
* Nitrogen narcosis
* Oxygen toxicity
* Seasickness
* Uncontrolled decompression
* Diver behaviour and competence
* Incompetence
* Overconfidence effect
* Panic
* Task loading
* Trait anxiety
* Willful violation

| Consequences|

* Barotrauma
* Decompression sickness
* Drowning
* Hypothermia
* Hypoxia
* Hypercapnia
* Hyperthermia
* Non-freezing cold injury

|

Diving
procedures|

* Ascending and descending
* Emergency ascent
* Boat diving
* Canoe and kayak diving
* Buddy diving
* buddy check
* Decompression
* Decompression practice
* Pyle stop
* Ratio decompression
* Dive briefing
* Dive log
* Dive planning
* Rule of thirds
* Scuba gas planning
* Diver communications
* Diver rescue
* Diver training
* Doing It Right
* Drift diving
* Gas blending for scuba diving
* Night diving
* Rebreather diving
* Scuba gas management
* Solo diving
* Wall diving

Risk
management|

* Checklist
* Hazard identification and risk assessment
* Hazard analysis
* Job safety analysis
* Risk assessment
* Hyperbaric evacuation and rescue
* Risk control
* Hierarchy of hazard controls
* Incident pit
* Lockout–tagout
* Permit To Work
* Redundancy
* Safety data sheet
* Situation awareness

| Diving team|

* Bellman
* Chamber operator
* Diver medical technician
* Diver's attendant
* Diving supervisor
* Diving systems technician
* Gas man
* Life support technician
* Stand-by diver

|

Equipment
safety|

* Breathing gas quality
* Testing and inspection of diving cylinders
* Hydrostatic test
* Sustained load cracking
* Diving regulator
* Breathing performance of regulators

Occupational
safety and
health|

* Association of Diving Contractors International
* International Marine Contractors Association
* Code of practice
* Contingency plan
* Diving regulations
* Emergency response plan
* Diving safety officer
* Diving superintendent
* Diving supervisor
* Operations manual
* Standard operating procedure

Diving medicine

| Diving
disorders|

* List of signs and symptoms of diving disorders
* Cramp
* Motion sickness
* Surfer's ear

| Pressure
related|

* Alternobaric vertigo
* Barostriction
* Barotrauma
* Air embolism
* Aerosinusitis
* Barodontalgia
* Dental barotrauma
* Middle ear barotrauma
* Pulmonary barotrauma
* Compression arthralgia
* Decompression illness
* Dysbarism

| Oxygen|

* Freediving blackout
* Hyperoxia
* Hypoxia
* Oxygen toxicity

|

Inert gases|

* Avascular necrosis
* Decompression sickness
* Dysbaric osteonecrosis
* Inner ear decompression sickness
* Isobaric counterdiffusion
* Taravana
* High-pressure nervous syndrome
* Hydrogen narcosis
* Nitrogen narcosis

Carbon dioxide|

* Hypercapnia
* Hypocapnia

Breathing gas
contaminants|

* Carbon monoxide poisoning

Immersion
related|

* Asphyxia
* Drowning
* Hypothermia
* Immersion diuresis
* Instinctive drowning response
* Laryngospasm
* Salt water aspiration syndrome
* Swimming-induced pulmonary edema

Treatment|

* Demand valve oxygen therapy
* First aid
* Hyperbaric medicine
* Hyperbaric treatment schedules
* In-water recompression
* Oxygen therapy
* Therapeutic recompression

Personnel|

* Diving Medical Examiner
* Diving Medical Practitioner
* Diving Medical Technician
* Hyperbaric nursing

Screening|

* Atrial septal defect
* Effects of drugs on fitness to dive
* Fitness to dive
* Psychological fitness to dive

Research|

| Researchers in
diving physiology
and medicine|

* Arthur J. Bachrach
* Albert R. Behnke
* Peter B. Bennett
* Paul Bert
* George F. Bond
* Robert Boyle
* Alf O. Brubakk
* Albert A. Bühlmann
* John R. Clarke
* Guybon Chesney Castell Damant
* Kenneth William Donald
* William Paul Fife
* John Scott Haldane
* Robert William Hamilton Jr.
* Henry Valence Hempleman
* Leonard Erskine Hill
* Brian Andrew Hills
* Felix Hoppe-Seyler
* Christian J. Lambertsen
* Simon Mitchell
* Charles Momsen
* Neal W. Pollock
* John Rawlins
* Charles Wesley Shilling
* Edward D. Thalmann
* Jacques Triger

|

Diving medical
research
organisations|

* Aerospace Medical Association
* Divers Alert Network (DAN)
* Diving Diseases Research Centre (DDRC)
* Diving Medical Advisory Council (DMAC)
* European Diving Technology Committee (EDTC)
* European Underwater and Baromedical Society (EUBS)
* National Board of Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Technology
* Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory
* Royal Australian Navy School of Underwater Medicine
* Rubicon Foundation
* South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society (SPUMS)
* Southern African Underwater and Hyperbaric Medical Association (SAUHMA)
* Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS)
* United States Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU)

Law

* Civil liability in recreational diving
* Diving regulations
* Duty of care
* List of legislation regulating underwater diving
* Investigation of diving accidents
* Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage

History of underwater diving

* History of decompression research and development
* History of dive computers
* History of Diving Museum
* History of scuba diving
* List of researchers in underwater diving
* Lyons Maritime Museum
* Man in the Sea Museum
* Timeline of atmospheric diving suits
* Timeline of diving technology
* Pearling in Western Australia
* US Navy decompression models and tables

| Archeological
sites|

* SS Commodore
* USS Monitor
* Queen Anne's Revenge
* Whydah Gally

|

Underwater art
and artists|

* The Diver
* Jason deCaires Taylor

Engineers
and inventors|

* Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont
* William Beebe
* Georges Beuchat
* Giovanni Alfonso Borelli
* Joseph-Martin Cabirol
* John R. Clarke
* Jacques Cousteau
* Charles Anthony Deane
* John Deane
* Louis de Corlieu
* Auguste Denayrouze
* Ted Eldred
* Henry Fleuss
* Émile Gagnan
* Karl Heinrich Klingert
* Peter Kreeft
* Christian J. Lambertsen
* Yves Le Prieur
* John Lethbridge
* Ernest William Moir
* Joseph Salim Peress
* Auguste Piccard
* Joe Savoie
* Willard Franklyn Searle
* Gordon Smith
* Augustus Siebe
* Pierre-Marie Touboulic
* Jacques Triger

Historical
equipment|

* Aqua-Lung
* RV Calypso
* SP-350 Denise
* Magnesium torch
* Nikonos
* Porpoise regulator
* Standard diving dress
* Sub Marine Explorer
* Vintage scuba

| Diver
propulsion
vehicles|

* Advanced SEAL Delivery System
* Cosmos CE2F series
* Dry Combat Submersible
* Human torpedo
* Motorised Submersible Canoe
* Necker Nymph
* R-2 Mala-class swimmer delivery vehicle
* SEAL Delivery Vehicle
* Shallow Water Combat Submersible
* Siluro San Bartolomeo
* Welfreighter
* Wet Nellie

|

Military and
covert operations|

* Raid on Alexandria (1941)
* Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior

Scientific projects|

* 1992 cageless shark-diving expedition
* Mission 31

Awards and events|

* Hans Hass Award
* International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame
* London Diving Chamber Dive Lectures
* NOGI Awards
* Women Divers Hall of Fame

Incidents|

| Dive boat incidents|

* Sinking of MV Conception

|

Diver rescues|

* Alpazat cave rescue
* Tham Luang cave rescue

Early diving|

* John Day (carpenter)
* Charles Spalding
* Ebenezer Watson

Freediving fatalities|

* Stephen Keenan
* Loïc Leferme
* Audrey Mestre
* Nicholas Mevoli
* Natalia Molchanova

Offshore
diving incidents|

* Byford Dolphin diving bell accident
* Drill Master diving accident
* Star Canopus diving accident
* Stena Seaspread diving accident
* Venture One diving accident
* Waage Drill II diving accident
* Wildrake diving accident

Professional
diving fatalities|

* Roger Baldwin
* John Bennett
* Victor F. Guiel Jr.
* Francis P. Hammerberg
* Craig M. Hoffman
* Peter Henry Michael Holmes
* Johnson Sea Link accident
* Edwin Clayton Link
* Gerard Anthony Prangley
* Per Skipnes
* Robert John Smyth
* Albert D. Stover
* Richard A. Walker
* Lothar Michael Ward
* Joachim Wendler
* Bradley Westell
* Arne Zetterström

Scuba diving
fatalities|

* 1973 Mount Gambier cave diving accident
* Ricardo Armbruster
* Allan Bridge
* David Bright
* Berry L. Cannon
* Cotton Coulson
* Cláudio Coutinho
* E. Yale Dawson
* Deon Dreyer
* Milan Dufek
* Sheck Exley
* Maurice Fargues
* Fernando Garfella Palmer
* Guy Garman
* Steve Irwin
* death
* Jim Jones
* Henry Way Kendall
* Artur Kozłowski
* Yuri Lipski
* Kirsty MacColl
* Linnea Mills
* Agnes Milowka
* François de Roubaix
* Chris and Chrissy Rouse
* Dave Shaw
* Wesley C. Skiles
* Dewey Smith
* Rob Stewart
* Esbjörn Svensson
* Josef Velek

Publications

| Manuals|

* NOAA Diving Manual
* U.S. Navy Diving Manual
* Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival
* Underwater Handbook
* Bennett and Elliott's physiology and medicine of diving
* Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving
* The new science of skin and scuba diving
* Professional Diver's Handbook
* Basic Scuba

|

Standards and
Codes of Practice|

* Code of Practice for Scientific Diving (UNESCO)
* DIN 7876
* IMCA Code of Practice for Offshore Diving
* ISO 24801 Recreational diving services — Requirements for the training of recreational scuba divers

General non-fiction|

* The Darkness Beckons
* Goldfinder
* The Last Dive
* Shadow Divers
* The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure

Research|

* List of Divers Alert Network publications

Dive guides|

Training and registration

| Diver
training|

* Competence and assessment
* Competency-based learning
* Refresher training
* Skill assessment
* Diver training standard
* Diving instructor
* Diving school
* Occupational diver training
* Commercial diver training
* Military diver training
* Public safety diver training
* Scientific diver training
* Recreational diver training
* Introductory diving
* ISO training standards
* Teaching method
* Muscle memory
* Overlearning
* Stress exposure training

| Skills|

* Combat sidestroke
* Diver navigation
* Diver trim
* Ear clearing
* Frenzel maneuver
* Valsalva maneuver
* Finning techniques
* Scuba skills
* Buddy breathing
* Low impact diving
* Diamond Reef System
* Surface-supplied diving skills
* Underwater searches

|

Recreational
scuba
certification
levels|

| Core diving skills|

* Advanced Open Water Diver
* Autonomous diver
* CMAS* scuba diver
* CMAS** scuba diver
* Introductory diving
* Low Impact Diver
* Master Scuba Diver
* Open Water Diver
* Supervised diver

|

Leadership skills|

* Dive leader
* Divemaster
* Diving instructor
* Master Instructor

Specialist skills|

* Rescue Diver
* Solo diver

Diver training
certification
and registration
organisations|

* European Underwater Federation (EUF)
* International Diving Regulators and Certifiers Forum (IDRCF)
* International Diving Schools Association (IDSA)
* International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA)
* List of diver certification organizations
* National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
* Nautical Archaeology Society
* Recreational diver course referral
* World Recreational Scuba Training Council (WRSTC)

| Commercial diver
certification
authorities|

* Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme (ADAS)
* Commercial diver registration in South Africa
* Divers Institute of Technology
* Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
* Department of Employment and Labour

|

Commercial diving
schools|

* Divers Academy International
* Norwegian diver school

Free-diving
certification
agencies|

* AIDA International (AIDA)
* Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS)
* Performance Freediving International (PI)
* Scuba Schools International (SSI)

Recreational
scuba
certification
agencies|

* American Canadian Underwater Certifications (ACUC)
* American Nitrox Divers International (ANDI)
* Association nationale des moniteurs de plongée (ANMP)
* British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC)
* Comhairle Fo-Thuinn (CFT)
* Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS)
* Federación Española de Actividades Subacuáticas (FEDAS)
* Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins (FFESSM)
* Federazione Italiana Attività Subacquee (FIAS)
* Global Underwater Explorers (GUE)
* International Association for Handicapped Divers (IAHD)
* International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD)
* International Life Saving Federation (ILS)
* Israeli Diving Federation (TIDF)
* National Academy of Scuba Educators (NASE)
* National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI)
* Nederlandse Onderwatersport Bond (NOB)
* Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)
* Professional Diving Instructors Corporation (PDIC)
* Professional Technical and Recreational Diving (ProTec)
* Rebreather Association of International Divers (RAID)
* Sub-Aqua Association (SAA)
* Scuba Diving International (SDI)
* Scuba Educators International (SEI)
* Scuba Schools International (SSI)
* Türkiye Sualtı Sporları Federasyonu (TSSF)
* United Diving Instructors (UDI)
* YMCA SCUBA Program

Scientific diver
certification
authorities|

* American Academy of Underwater Sciences (AAUS)
* CMAS Scientific Committee

Technical diver
certification
agencies|

* American Nitrox Divers International (ANDI)
* British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC)
* Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS)
* Diving Science and Technology (DSAT)
* Federazione Italiana Attività Subacquee (FIAS)
* International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD)
* Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)
* Professional Diving Instructors Corporation (PDIC)
* Professional Technical and Recreational Diving (ProTec)
* Rebreather Association of International Divers (RAID)
* Trimix Scuba Association (TSA)
* Technical Extended Range (TXR)

| Cave
diving|

* Cave Divers Association of Australia (CDAA)
* Cave Diving Group (CDG)
* Global Underwater Explorers (GUE)
* National Speleological Society#Cave Diving Group (CDG)
* National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI)
* Technical Diving International (TDI)

|

Military diver
training centres|

* Defence Diving School
* Navy Diving Salvage and Training Center
* Underwater Escape Training Unit

Military diver
training courses|

* United States Marine Corps Combatant Diver Course

Underwater sports

| Surface snorkeling|

* Finswimming

|

Snorkeling/breath-hold|

* Spearfishing
* Underwater football
* Underwater hockey
* Australia
* Turkey
* Underwater rugby
* Colombia
* United States
* Underwater target shooting

Breath-hold|

* Aquathlon
* Apnoea finswimming
* Freediving

Open Circuit Scuba|

* Immersion finswimming
* Sport diving
* Underwater cycling
* Underwater orienteering
* Underwater photography

Rebreather|

* Underwater photography

Sports governing
organisations
and federations|

* International
* AIDA International
* Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques)
* National
* AIDA Hellas
* Australian Underwater Federation
* British Freediving Association
* British Octopush Association
* British Underwater Sports Association
* Comhairle Fo-Thuinn
* Federación Española de Actividades Subacuáticas
* Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins
* South African Underwater Sports Federation
* Türkiye Sualtı Sporları Federasyonu
* Underwater Society of America)

Competitions|

* 14th CMAS Underwater Photography World Championship
* Underwater Hockey World Championships
* Underwater Orienteering World Championships
* Underwater Rugby World Championships

Underwater divers

| Pioneers
of diving|

* Eduard Admetlla i Lázaro
* Aquanaut
* Mary Bonnin
* Amelia Behrens-Furniss
* James F. Cahill
* Jacques Cousteau
* Billy Deans
* Dottie Frazier
* Trevor Hampton
* Hans Hass
* Hannes Keller
* Dick Rutkowski
* Teseo Tesei
* Arne Zetterström

|

Underwater
scientists
archaeologists and
environmentalists|

* Michael Arbuthnot
* Robert Ballard
* George Bass
* Mensun Bound
* Louis Boutan
* Jeffrey Bozanic
* Hugh Bradner
* Cathy Church
* Eugenie Clark
* James P. Delgado
* Sylvia Earle
* John Christopher Fine
* George R. Fischer
* Anders Franzén
* Honor Frost
* Fernando Garfella Palmer
* David Gibbins
* Graham Jessop
* Swietenia Puspa Lestari
* Pilar Luna
* Robert F. Marx
* Anna Marguerite McCann
* Innes McCartney
* Charles T. Meide
* Mark M. Newell
* Lyuba Ognenova-Marinova
* John Peter Oleson
* Mendel L. Peterson
* Richard Pyle
* Andreas Rechnitzer
* William R. Royal
* Margaret Rule
* Gunter Schöbel
* Stephanie Schwabe
* Myriam Seco
* E. Lee Spence
* Robert Sténuit
* Peter Throckmorton
* Cristina Zenato

Scuba record
holders|

* Pascal Bernabé
* Jim Bowden
* Mark Ellyatt
* Sheck Exley
* Nuno Gomes
* Claudia Serpieri
* Krzysztof Starnawski

Underwater
filmmakers
and presenters|

* Samir Alhafith
* David Attenborough
* Ramón Bravo
* Jean-Michel Cousteau
* Richie Kohler
* Paul Rose
* Andy Torbet
* Ivan Tors
* Andrew Wight
* James Cameron

Underwater
photographers|

* Doug Allan
* Tamara Benitez
* Georges Beuchat
* Adrian Biddle
* Jonathan Bird
* Eric Cheng
* Neville Coleman
* Jacques Cousteau
* John D. Craig
* Ben Cropp
* Bernard Delemotte
* David Doubilet
* Candice Farmer
* John Christopher Fine
* Rodney Fox
* Ric Frazier
* Stephen Frink
* Peter Gimbel
* Monty Halls
* Hans Hass
* Henry Way Kendall
* Rudie Kuiter
* Joseph B. MacInnis
* Luis Marden
* Agnes Milowka
* Noel Monkman
* Pete Oxford
* Steve Parish
* Zale Parry
* Pierre Petit
* Leni Riefenstahl
* Peter Scoones
* Brian Skerry
* Wesley C. Skiles
* E. Lee Spence
* Philippe Tailliez
* Ron Taylor
* Valerie Taylor
* Albert Tillman
* John Veltri
* Stan Waterman
* Michele Westmorland
* John Ernest Williamson
* J. Lamar Worzel

Underwater
explorers|

* Caves
* Graham Balcombe
* Sheck Exley
* Martyn Farr
* Jochen Hasenmayer
* Jill Heinerth
* Jarrod Jablonski
* Brian Kakuk
* William Hogarth Main
* Tom Mount
* Jack Sheppard
* Bill Stone
* Reefs
* Arthur C. Clarke
* Wrecks
* Leigh Bishop
* John Chatterton
* Clive Cussler
* Bill Nagle
* Valerie van Heest
* Aristotelis Zervoudis

Aquanauts|

* Andrew Abercromby
* Joseph M. Acaba
* Clayton Anderson
* Richard R. Arnold
* Serena Auñón-Chancellor
* Michael Barratt (astronaut)
* Robert A. Barth
* Robert L. Behnken
* Randolph Bresnik
* Timothy J. Broderick
* Justin Brown
* Berry L. Cannon
* Scott Carpenter
* Gregory Chamitoff
* Steve Chappell
* Catherine Coleman
* Robin Cook
* Craig B. Cooper
* Fabien Cousteau
* Philippe Cousteau
* Timothy Creamer
* Jonathan Dory
* Pedro Duque
* Sylvia Earle
* Jeanette Epps
* Sheck Exley
* Albert Falco
* Andrew J. Feustel
* Michael Fincke
* Satoshi Furukawa
* Ronald J. Garan Jr.
* Michael L. Gernhardt
* Christopher E. Gerty
* David Gruber
* Chris Hadfield
* Jeremy Hansen
* José M. Hernández
* John Herrington
* Paul Hill
* Akihiko Hoshide
* Mark Hulsbeck
* Emma Hwang
* Norishige Kanai
* Les Kaufman
* Scott Kelly
* Karen Kohanowich
* Timothy Kopra
* Dominic Landucci
* Jon Lindbergh
* Kjell N. Lindgren
* Michael López-Alegría
* Joseph B. MacInnis
* Sandra Magnus
* Thomas Marshburn
* Matthias Maurer
* K. Megan McArthur
* Craig McKinley
* Jessica Meir
* Simone Melchior
* Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger
* Andreas Mogensen
* Karen Nyberg
* John D. Olivas
* Takuya Onishi
* Luca Parmitano
* Nicholas Patrick
* Tim Peake
* Thomas Pesquet
* Marc Reagan
* Garrett Reisman
* Kathleen Rubins
* Dick Rutkowski
* Tara Ruttley
* David Saint-Jacques
* Josef Schmid
* Robert Sheats
* Dewey Smith
* Steve Squyres
* Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper
* Robert Sténuit
* Hervé Stevenin
* Nicole Stott
* James Talacek
* Daniel M. Tani
* Robert Thirsk
* Bill Todd
* Mark T. Vande Hei
* Koichi Wakata
* Rex J. Walheim
* Shannon Walker
* John Morgan Wells
* Joachim Wendler
* Douglas H. Wheelock
* Peggy Whitson
* Dafydd Williams
* Jeffrey Williams
* Sunita Williams
* Reid Wiseman
* Kimiya Yui

Writers and journalists|

* Michael C. Barnette
* Victor Berge
* Philippe Diolé
* Gary Gentile
* Bret Gilliam
* Bob Halstead
* Hillary Hauser
* Trevor Jackson
* Steve Lewis
* John Mattera

Rescuers|

* Craig Challen
* Richard Harris
* Rick Stanton
* John Volanthen

Frogmen|

* Lionel Crabb
* Ian Edward Fraser
* Sydney Knowles
* James Joseph Magennis

Commercial salvors|

* Keith Jessop

Science of underwater diving

* List of researchers in underwater diving

| Diving
physics|

* Metre sea water
* Neutral buoyancy
* Underwater acoustics
* Modulated ultrasound
* Underwater vision
* Underwater computer vision

|

Diving
physiology|

* Blood shift
* Cold shock response
* Diving reflex
* Equivalent narcotic depth
* Maximum operating depth
* Physiological response to water immersion
* Thermal balance of the underwater diver
* Underwater vision
* Work of breathing

| Decompression
theory|

* Decompression models:
* Bühlmann decompression algorithm
* Haldane's decompression model
* Reduced gradient bubble model
* Thalmann algorithm
* Thermodynamic model of decompression
* Varying Permeability Model
* Equivalent air depth
* Oxygen window
* Physiology of decompression

|

Diving
environments|

* Underwater exploration
* Deep-sea exploration

| Classification|

* List of diving environments by type
* Altitude diving
* Benign water diving
* Confined water diving
* Deep diving
* Inland diving
* Inshore diving
* Muck diving
* Night diving
* Open-water diving
* Black-water diving
* Blue-water diving
* Penetration diving
* Cave diving
* Torricellian chamber
* Ice diving
* Wreck diving
* Recreational dive sites
* Underwater environment
* Underwater diving environment

|

Impact|

* Environmental impact of recreational diving
* Low impact diving

Other

* Bathysphere
* Defense against swimmer incursions
* Diver detection sonar
* Offshore survey
* Rugged compact camera
* Underwater domain awareness
* Underwater vehicle

| Deep-submergence
vehicle|

* Aluminaut
* DSV Alvin
* American submarine NR-1
* Bathyscaphe
* Archimède
* FNRS-2
* FNRS-3
* Harmony class bathyscaphe
* Sea Pole-class bathyscaphe
* Trieste II
* Deepsea Challenger
* Ictineu 3
* JAGO
* Jiaolong
* Konsul-class submersible
* Limiting Factor
* Russian submarine Losharik
* Mir
* Nautile
* Pisces-class deep submergence vehicle
* DSV Sea Cliff
* DSV Shinkai
* DSV Shinkai 2000
* DSV Shinkai 6500
* DSV Turtle
* DSV-5 Nemo

|

Submarine rescue|

* International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office
* Submarine Escape and Rescue system (Royal Swedish Navy)
* McCann Rescue Chamber
* Submarine rescue ship

| Deep-submergence
rescue vehicle|

* LR5
* LR7
* MSM-1
* Mystic-class deep-submergence rescue vehicle
* DSRV-1 Mystic
* DSRV-2 Avalon
* NATO Submarine Rescue System
* Priz-class deep-submergence rescue vehicle
* Russian deep submergence rescue vehicle AS-28
* Russian submarine AS-34
* ASRV Remora
* SRV-300
* Submarine Rescue Diving Recompression System
* Type 7103 DSRV
* URF (Swedish Navy)

|

Submarine escape|

* Escape trunk
* Submarine escape training facility
* Submarine Escape Training Facility (Australia)

| Escape set|

* Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus
* Momsen lung
* Steinke hood
* Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment

|

Special
interest
groups|

* Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia
* CMAS Europe
* Coral Reef Alliance
* Divers Alert Network
* Green Fins
* Finger Lakes Underwater Preserve Association
* Karst Underwater Research
* Nautical Archaeology Program
* Nautical Archaeology Society
* Naval Air Command Sub Aqua Club
* PADI AWARE
* Reef Check
* Reef Life Survey
* Rubicon Foundation
* Save Ontario Shipwrecks
* SeaKeys
* Sea Research Society
* Society for Underwater Historical Research
* Society for Underwater Technology
* Underwater Archaeology Branch, Naval History & Heritage Command

Neutral buoyancy
facilities for
Astronaut training|

* Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory
* Neutral buoyancy pool
* Neutral buoyancy simulation as a training aid
* Neutral Buoyancy Simulator
* Space Systems Laboratory
* Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

Other|

* Nautilus Productions
* Helicopter Aircrew Breathing Device
* Scuba diving therapy
* Seabed mining

* Category
* Commons
* Glossary
* Indexes: Dive sites
* Divers
* Diving
* Outline
* Portal

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Japan
* Italy
* Australia
* Czech Republic
* Spain
* Portugal
* Netherlands
* Norway
* Latvia
* Croatia
* Greece
* Korea
* Sweden
* Poland
* Vatican
* Israel
* Catalonia
* Belgium

Academics|

* CiNii

Artists|

* ULAN
* MusicBrainz
* RKD Artists
* Museum of Modern Art
* Photographers' Identities
* FID

People|

* BMLO
* Trove
* Deutsche Biographie
* DDB

Other|

* IdRef
* NARA
* Yale LUX

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