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Welcome to the Guardian long read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture,

politics and new thinking. For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the

guardian.com forward slash long read. Burying Lenny Riefenstahl, one woman's lifelong crusade against

Hitler's favourite filmmaker, by Kate Connelly, read by Kate Connelly and produced by Hattie Moeah.

On the 20th of November 1984 in the southern German city of Freiburg, two filmmakers

faced each other in court for the first day of a trial that was to last nearly two and a half years.

The plaintive, Lenny Riefenstahl, had been Hitler's favourite filmmaker.

Now 82, she showed up to court in a sheepskin coat over a beige suit. Her blonde hair set in a large

neat perm framing a tanned face. The defendant was a striking, dark head, 38-year-old documentary maker.

Her name was Nina Gladitz, and the outcome of the trial would shape the rest of her life.

During the Nazi era, Riefenstahl had been the regime's most skilled propagandist, directing films

that continue to be both reviled for their glorification of the Third Reich and considered landmarks

of early cinema for their innovations and technical mastery. Once the Second World War was over,

Riefenstahl sought to distance herself from the regime she had served, portraying herself as an

apolitical naïf whose only motivation was making the most beautiful art possible.

I don't know what I should apologise for, she once said. All my films won the top prize.

...