Quotes

I filmed the truth as it was then. Nothing more.

[recalling at age 83 her 1936 film Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations (1938), which identified her with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party] "They killed me then. I am a ghost."

[In a 1993 interview, commenting on her work with the Nazi party] "Being sorry isn't nearly enough, but I can't tear myself apart or destroy myself. It's so terrible. I've suffered anyway for over half a century and it will never end, until I die. It's such an incredible burden, that to say 'sorry'... it's inadequate, it expresses too little."

I told Hitler that filming the party congress was too difficult for a girl. I told him the men are jealous and the problems I encountered affected my nerves. Hitler became very angry. He told Goebbels that when he gave an order, Goebbels was supposed to obey it. Hitler then told me that I must make a film of the congress in 1934 but I protested, saying that the same thing would happen. He... assured me that there would be no interference.

Really, if I start a work I forget food. I forget that I am a woman. I forget my dress, I only see my work. I forget because I am fascinated by my work.

I was never Hitler's mistress - although I was dazzled by him. These are nothing but lies. It is senseless to call me the queen of the Nazis. I have never spoken a word about politics. It is all lies and forgeries. If I had really been a Nazi I would have killed myself, like Eva Braun. I have never said that Hitler was handsome and intelligent. I am not an idiot. I have never seen mass executions and I have never seen a concentration camp.

If I, as so many other colleagues, would have worked for the sake of money, I could have become a millionaire. But money was of no importance to me. I worked on a film for years until I thought it artistically perfected. I was my own boss, nobody could tell me what to do. Had I ever had the impression that my freedom as a creative artist would be limited, I would have gone abroad.