Hitler and Hollywood: the Collaboration of American Movie
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Hitler and Hollywood: The Collaboration of American Movie Studios with Nazi Germany By Benjamin Alexander Urwand A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Leon Litwack, Chair Professor Martin Jay Greil Marcus Professor Carol Clover Spring 2011 Abstract Hitler and Hollywood: The Collaboration of American Movie Studios with Nazi Germany by Benjamin Alexander Urwand Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Berkeley Professor Leon Litwack, Chair From 1933 to 1940, the Hollywood studios came to an arrangement with the Nazis that both parties understood at the time as "collaboration [Zusammenarbeit]." The studios sold around 250 movies to Germany in this period, in return for which they had to agree not to attack the Nazis in any of their productions. When the United States entered the Second World War in 1941, the studios finally put out a barrage of anti-Nazi pictures, but refused to use the medium to bring the genocide of the Jews to the world's attention. The collaboration of the American studios with Nazi Germany has never been addressed in any of the scholarly or popular literature on the Third Reich or in the history of film. This project draws on primary materials from dozens of archives and hundreds of movies to tell a story that is completely unknown. 1 in memory of Michael Rogin (1937-2001) i Introduction Eleven men were sitting in a screening room in Berlin. Only a few of them were Nazis. At the front of the room was Dr. Ernst Seeger, chief censor from long before Hitler came to power; he was assisted by two film men, an architect, and a pastor. There were several lawyers present, and two expert witnesses. The movie they were about to see came all the way from America, and it was called King Kong. When the projector began to whir, one of the men stood up. He read out a long script to emphasize the fictitious nature of the events on the screen. As he spoke, an enormously oversized gorilla fell in love with a beautiful woman and then fell off the Empire State Building. With the gorilla lying dead on the ground, one of the characters muttered something about “beauty and the beast,” and the movie came to an end.1 It was time to turn to the official proceedings. Dr. Seeger looked over at one of the expert witnesses, Professor Zeiss from the German Health Office. “In your expert opinion,” he asked, “could this picture be expected to damage the health of normal spectators?”2 Zeiss was in no mood to cooperate. “First,” he said, “I need to know whether the company trying to sell this film is German or American.” “It’s a German distributor,” Seeger replied. Zeiss erupted. “I am astounded and shocked,” he yelled, “that a German company would try to obtain permission for a film that can only be damaging to the health of its viewers. It is not merely incomprehensible but indeed an impertinence to show such a film, for this film is NOTHING LESS THAN AN ATTACK ON THE NERVES OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE!”3 Everyone was silent for a moment. Seeger then requested that the expert not judge the motives of the company but confine his statements to his own area of expertise.4 Zeiss returned to the original question. “It provokes our racial instincts,” he said, “to show a blonde woman of the German type in the hand of an ape. It harms the healthy racial feelings of the German people. The torture to which this woman is exposed, her mortal fear, and the other horrible things that one would only imagine in a drunken frenzy are harmful to German health. “My judgment has nothing to do with the technical achievements of the film, which I recognize. Nor do I care what other countries think is good for their people. For the German people, this film is unbearable.”5 Zeiss had argued his case with all the zeal of a good National Socialist. No one could fault his motives. In response, Dr. Schulte, assistant practitioner at a mental hospital in Berlin, defended the film company’s position. He was as ice-cold as Zeiss was fiery, and he calmly denied all the professor’s charges. “In every instance that the film potentially seems dangerous,” he said, “it is in fact merely ridiculous. The voice-over we have added only confirms this. We must not forget 1 King Kong, dir. Merian C. Cooper, RKO, 1933. 2 Oberprüfstelle report 6910, September 15, 1933, 1, Deutsches Filminstitut Frankfurt. All translations in the dissertation are my own unless otherwise noted. 3 My emphasis. 4 Oberprüfstelle report 6910, 2. 5 Oberprüfstelle report 6910, 2-3. My emphasis. ii that we are dealing with an American film produced for American spectators, and that the German public is considerably more critical. Even if it is admitted that the kidnapping of the blonde woman by a terrific beast is a delicate matter, it still does not go beyond the borders of the permissible. “Psychopaths or women,” he added, “who could be thrown into a panic by the film, must not provide the criterion for this decision.”6 The committee members were at an impasse. Both sides had advanced tenable arguments; no one was willing to pass judgment just yet. A few months earlier, all cultural institutions in Germany had been put under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda Ministry, and ever since then no one really knew what was permissible and what was not. Certainly no one wanted to get on the bad side of the new Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels. Seeger therefore wrote to the Ministry about the case and he set up another hearing for the following week, by which time the committee would know for sure whether King Kong harmed German racial feelings. There was just one more thing Seeger needed to do. He wrote to Zeiss and asked him to untangle his original statement. Was King Kong harmful to German health simply because it endangered the race instinct? Four days later Seeger received a reply. “It is untrue,” Zeiss wrote, “that I said the film endangers the race instinct and is therefore dangerous to one’s health. Rather, my expert opinion is that the film is in the first place dangerous to one’s health, and that it additionally endangers the race instinct, which is another reason it endangers one’s health.”7 Zeiss’s letter may not have been entirely clear, but it certainly seemed as if he thought the film endangered one’s health. The committee now just needed to hear from the Propaganda Ministry. A full week passed and Seeger was forced to postpone the upcoming meeting. Another week passed and the Propaganda Ministry was still reviewing the film. Then a letter arrived. After all the fuss, the Propaganda Ministry announced that King Kong did not harm the race instinct. Seeger quickly reconvened the committee. Fewer people attended this time. The specialists had already testified, and the screenwriter was no longer needed. The distribution company had abandoned the idea of a voice-over and had been working on a new film title to make the events seem fictitious instead. The company submitted the title – its seventh attempt – and then the meeting got underway. Seeger began by summarizing the plot of the film. “On an undiscovered island in the South Sea, animals from prehistoric times are still able to exist: a fifteen-meter high gorilla, sea-snakes, dinosaurs of various kinds, a gigantic bird, and others. Outside this prehistoric empire, separated by a wall, live blacks who offer human sacrifices to the gorilla ‘King Kong.’ The blacks kidnap the blonde star of a film expedition and present her to King Kong instead of a woman of their own race. The ship’s crew invades the gorilla’s empire and has terrible battles with the prehistoric beasts in order to survive. They capture the gorilla by rendering him unconscious with a gas bomb, and they take him to New York. The gorilla breaks out during an exhibition, everyone flees in horror, 6 Oberprüfstelle report 6910, 3. My emphasis. 7 Oberprüfstelle report 6910, October 5, 1933, 1-2. My emphasis. iii and an elevated commuter train is derailed. The gorilla then climbs up a skyscraper with his girl-doll in his hand, and airplanes bring about his downfall.”8 Upon completing the reading, Seeger announced the big news. “Since the specialist from the Propaganda Ministry stated that the film does not harm German racial feelings, the only thing left to determine is whether the film endangers the people’s health.”9 No one questioned this line of reasoning. Seeger had just said that the blacks in the film presented a white woman to King Kong “instead of a woman of their own race.” He was invoking Thomas Jefferson’s claim from 150 years earlier that black men preferred white women “as uniformly as is the preference of the Oranootan for the black women over those of his own species.”10 In other words, Seeger was bringing up an obvious racial problem with the film. This image did not offend the Propaganda Ministry, however. In the Third Reich it was perfectly acceptable to show an “oranootan’s” desire for “a blonde woman of the German type.” It was acceptable even though this was also one of the images that the allies had used in the previous World War.