Scholar Asserts That Hollywood Avidly Aided Nazis

[boutons_deux]

The list of ins utions and industries that have been accused of whitewashing their links to the Third Reich is long, including variousgovernments, the Vatican, Swiss banks and American corporations like I.B.M., General Motors and DuPont.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930), a film that led to Nazi riots and demands for editing.


Now a young historian wants to add a more glamorous name to that roll call: Hollywood.

Hollywood studios, in an effort to protect the German market for their movies, not only acquiesced to Nazi censorship but also actively and enthusiastically cooperated with that regime’s global propaganda effort.
In the 1930s “Hollywood is not just collaborating with Nazi Germany,” Mr. Urwand said by telephone from Cambridge, Mass., where he is currently at Harvard’s prestigious Society of Fellows. “It’s also collaborating with Adolf Hitler, the person and human being.”

That the German government meddled in the film industry during Hollywood’s so-called golden age has long been known to film historians, and such activity was chronicled in the American press at the time. (“Long Arm of Hitler Extends to Hollywood Studio,” read a 1937 headline in Newsweek.)

But Mr. Urwand, 35, offers the most stinging take by far, drawing on material from German and American archives to argue that the relationship between Hollywood and the Third Reich ran much deeper — and went on much longer — than any scholar has so far suggested.

It was Warner who personally ordered that the word “Jew” be removed from all dialogue in the 1937 film “The Life of Emile Zola,” Mr. Urwand writes, and his studio was the first to invite Nazi officials to its Los Angeles headquarters to screen films and suggest cuts.

“There’s a whole myth that Warner Brothers were crusaders against fascism,” Mr. Urwand said. “But they were the first to try to appease the Nazis in 1933.”

Sometimes entire films were quashed. Previous historians have written about the battle over “The Mad Dog of Europe,” an anti-Nazi film planned in 1933 that some Jewish groups opposed on the grounds that it would stoke anti-Semitism. But Mr. Urwand, who uncovered the only known script, argues that the studios were concerned only with protecting their business with Germany.

“We have terrific income in Germany and, as far as I am concerned,” Louis B. Mayer was quoted in a legal case as saying, “this picture will never be made.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/bo...s.html?hp&_r=0

[The Reckoning]

in the 1930s fascism was looked upon as necessary to rebuild europe without the influence of communism.

that took a turn when WWII broke out and especially the Spanish Civil War, and Hollywood pumped out soo many anti-Nazi movies like Casablanca.

in the 1950s with McCarthyism, the US govt turned on Hollywood, and propaganda films ceased to exist. imagine how different Vietnam and Korea sentiments would be if Hollywood supported the anti-Communist operations.

[angrydude]

Yea, McCarthy did it. right. You talk like there weren't communists in hollywood in the 1950s.

[baseline bum]

Not to spoil a boutons article dump, but I thought this was an interesting story of Hollywood supporting the war effort and helping us take out German V-2 installations in the war.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spies-3d.html

[Winehole23]

Yea, McCarthy did it. right. You talk like there weren't communists in hollywood in the 1950s.

TR said no such thing, that I can tell.