The director was searching for a suitable actor for the role of the young shepherd Pedro in her film adaptation of the opera Tiefland.
In her autobiography, she writes that she noticed the then 20-year-old Austrian at the 1939 Kandahar Ski Race in St. Anton am Arlberg, and he visually matched her vision for the film character.
[2] After the war, however, an article in the magazine Revue claimed, Riefenstahl made 2,000 Gebirgsjäger walk by in front of her multiple times to choose a suitable actor.
[3] Riefenstahl strongly denied this claim and insisted on her version of events, which was confirmed by Eichberger and her former assistant Harald Reinl in sworn statements.
Later, he worked with notable directors such as Georg Wilhelm Pabst (Der Prozeß, Geheimnisvolle Tiefe) and Helmut Käutner (Die letzte Brücke), but mostly in smaller supporting roles.