Dancing in the Darkness

She helped create Nazi Germany's deadliest propaganda. then she helped destroy the regime that made it. From Hollywood dreams to Nazi nightmares—the truth Sally Faulkner kept buried from the world for decades. Dancing in the Darkness tells the shocking story of an ambitious American filmmaker whose pursuit of stardom led her from 1930s Hollywood to the heart of the Nazi propaganda empire. Her journey reveals one of the most extraordinary- and morally complex- untold stories of World War II. A chance meeting with legendary director Leni Riefenstahl changes Sally's life forever. Swept from the sets of Gone with the Wind to Berlin's Babelsberg Studios, Sally finds herself entangled in Joseph Goebbel’s brutal propaganda machine, working alongside infamous filmmaker Veit Harlan and his wife and leading actress Kristina Söderbaum. From documenting the invasion of Poland to filming inside the Lodz ghetto, Sally’s ambition blinds her to the horror around her- until the premiere of Jud Süss, the vicious anti-Semitic film she helped produce, brings devastating moral reckoning. But this is only the start of Sally's story. When Sally rejects Goebbels' advances, he has her thrown into Berlin’s infamous Plötzensee Prison. Against all odds, she escapes the Third Reich with her life—and a vow for redemption. Returning to America, Sally fights to rebuild her shattered career, creating Allied propaganda films with Frank Capra, preparing evidence for the Nuremberg Trials, whilst confronting the gravity of her complicity in one of history's greatest evils. Raw, honest, and unforgettable—a memoir of eyewitness testimony, personal confession and moral reckoning. Discovered after her death, Sally's unflinching account explores how ordinary people become complicit in extraordinary evil- and whether redemption is truly possible. A powerful story of ambition, complicity, love and guilt. Perfect for fans of Heather Morris, Kate Quinn and Anthony Doerr.