Congratulations to Alex von Tunzelmann on an excellent article on the film, Olympia (The shameful legacy of the Olympic Games, 15 June). I was in considerable correspondence with Leni Riefenstahl in the early 1960s, have probably seen the film more times than even Riefenstahl herself, and would like to make some observations (my play, 1936, will show at the Lilian Baylis theatre from 18 July to 5 August).
There is no 5,000m in the decathlon – the event is difficult enough as it is – but Riefenstahl did recreate the final event, the 1,500m, using German decathletes and her lover Glenn Morris. And, though the German decathlete Erwin Huber was used in the opening sequences of the film (filmed in September 1936 on the Baltic coast), your photograph is of Glenn Morris.
Back in 1956, in discussion with the Scottish documentary-maker John Grierson, he informed me that it was he who had discovered a copy of Olympia, as a member of an army film unit making its way through Germany in 1945 – hence its ownership by the Army Kinema Corporation.
There will always be debate on whether Olympia is, as Tunzelmann claims, a piece of "Nazi pageantry". I suppose it all depends on which of several versions of the film you have seen, though it is worth observing that the French immediately gave it an award when it was released in 1938. But two facts cannot be ignored. The first is that Goebbels was a constant thorn in Riefenstahl's flesh during its making, and that when she ran out of money during the editing, he threatened to withdraw funding. It was only by pleading with Hitler that she was able to complete the film. It is difficult to see why Goebbels would wish to get in the way of a piece of "Nazi pageantry". The second is that if there is a god of the Berlin Olympics, it is surely Jesse Owens, and that is in no small part due to the way in which Riefenstahl lovingly dwells on his supple muscles on every possible occasion.
Tom McNab
St Albans, Hertfordshire