Leni Riefenstahl's estate: research results, digitisation and exhibition
News from 01/29/2026
The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz has been cataloguing and researching Leni Riefenstahl's extensive estate for several years. Initial results from sub-projects are now available online; from 22 May 2026, the examination of the estate will also be visible in an exhibition at the Museum für Fotografie.
The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) has been working on cataloguing and researching Leni Riefenstahl's extensive estate since 2018. The collection comprises more than 700 boxes of photographs, films, letters, manuscripts, notes and other documents. The Art Library with its Museum of Photography, the Ethnological Museum, the Berlin State Library and the German Cinematheque Foundation are involved in the processing.
The estate offers great potential for research, but at the same time presents the participating institutions with particular challenges. These relate to the scope and diversity of the materials as well as ethical, legal and socio-political issues. The SPK is therefore pursuing an approach of successive cataloguing in sub-projects, each of which incorporates different perspectives.
Marion Ackermann, President of the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbeitz, says: "As early as 2018, the SPK was aware that with the estate it had not only taken on a groundbreaking aesthetic work, but also a special responsibility for the critical examination of this controversial figure of contemporary history. Just as important as the research into the estate is the educational work. I am therefore particularly looking forward to the pop-up exhibition 'Inside Archives' by students who have been working with the Nuba photographs and films. They have re-read Riefenstahl's images in order to break their power, expose their layers and try out new forms of storytelling in their reflections."
The results of the first sub-project are now publicly accessible on a multilingual website. The project was dedicated to the more than 10,000 photographs and films that Leni Riefenstahl took of the Nuba in Sudan in the 1960s and 1970s. The aim was to focus on the views of the members of the Nuba communities and to categorise the works from today's perspective. The research was carried out in collaboration with the Pan-Nuba Council and Sudanese researchers and artists.
At the same time, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin is cataloguing the extensive written legacy. This includes film scripts, manuscripts, correspondence, life documents and parts of Riefenstahl's private library. Cataloguing information and selected digital copies will be successively published online and form a basis for further research questions.
From 22 May 2026, the examination of the estate will also be visible in an exhibition at the Museum für Fotografie. Under the title "Inside Archives", students from the "Art in Context" master's programme at Berlin University of the Arts will be presenting works together with Sudanese artists that deal with Riefenstahl's Nuba photographs and films. The exhibition can be seen until 7 June 2026; the opening will take place on 21 May at 7 pm.