Part One: How Hollywood Helped The Nazis

You are a comedian. You are a writer, host of Dumb People, Town, Hindsight, pen Pals, three great podcasts than you, and I'm gonna guess you can throw a pretty good punch because you look kind of yoked. I just think the listeners should know that. Thanks. It's all I'm going for is yoked. I am working towards that being my only introduction. Alright, this next guy is Yokes. Please welcome to the Yokes as Hell. Just saw him on the

street and brought him into the podcast. I am going to fight that rule that you can't do stand up in a tank time that a rule. Can't think about it? Would you listen to anybody talk to you on a microphone in the tank top. I was Daniel O'Brien's subordinate for years and he wears a tank top of the time, so maybe he's broken used to it. Yeah. Um, all right, So today we are talking about Hollywood and the Nazis,

I mean, and how the two helped one another. You know, you say that US guests come into this cold and I am ready for that. That's beautiful. Well, what do you think when you think of like how Hollywood reacted to the Nazis, what do you think of? Well, one, I think there's that documentary on Netflix about a whole bunch of directors get sent to like make propaganda films. I mean they made propaganda for the US against the Nazis. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah yeah. Are we saying the idea of people who are we pro within the Hollywood elite. It's a little more complicated than that. When we think about Hollywood the Nazis, we think about what you're talking about, those like why we fight documentaries and like bugs Bunny beating up Hitler and and all that stuff that all came after the war had started. When we talk about the period from when the Nazis took power to the beginning of World War two and what Hollywood, it is a very different

tale and a less positive one towards Hollywood. So that's what we're gonna talk about. All right, Well, I'm going to start us off with some background on the motion picture industry because I think it's going to be useful to sort of set the tone that this story comes in on. The first good movie going experience probably happened

on December in Paris. This is when Tin Lumiser Brothers films were screened, and it was sort of the first time where projection technology was advanced enough that, like it was a good picture, you'd actually want to go and see this rather than looking at like a grainy like you know, it wouldn't be clear what was really happening. So that was the first like good movie going experience. The first permanent movie theater, the Nickelodeon, was opened in

Pittsburgh in nineteen o five. The first full length movie came out a year later. It was an Australian film about the outlaw Ned Kelly. But of course Americans quickly grew to dominate the industry, which you may have caught, yeah, that it started in Pittsburgh. Yeah, the first movie theater. I would never have guessed that right either. Yeah, Like Pittsburgh Okay, yeah, all right, I guess that in a

Permanti Brothers sandwich your historic. I don't know what that means because I've never been to Pittsburgh either, but I see it on all those food jounls. It's like the sandwich where they put everything on the sandwich, like fries and cole slaw. It's Permanti Brothers supposed to be amazing. Well, our three Pittsburgh listeners are over the moon right now. We're here for you. We're here for you, guys. Today is for you Pittsburgh. Obviously, one American was more dominant

than others in the early film industry. Thomas Alba Edison now William Dixon, a Scottish inventor, actually created the kinetoscope, which is one of the very first movie cameras, but he worked for Thomas Edison, and so in eighteen ninety two Edison got the patent for like the first functional movie camera that you could really sell as a commercial device. This made him even wealthier, although who's are already pretty

rich at the time. Dixon, because he didn't get rich off of inventing the movie camera, went on to become one of the first video pornographers and all of history and to make kids fortune. Yeah, he's that's the prequel to the Deuce. Yes, yes, yes. Edison meanwhile just kept buying patents related to the motion picture industry and suing

anyone he caught infringing upon them. Uh. In nineteen o eight, he was a leading mind behind the creation of the Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a trust that basically bonded everyone who owned a film patent together in one organization so they could control which films could be made

and basically monopolized the art form of filming. Things Like anytime there's a new industry, especially in the eighteen hundreds and then the early nineteen yards, it was like three or four people being like, well, let's just on all of it. Let's just down all of it and stop it from ever changing, because that was Edison's idea. He figured movies would always be like five or ten minutes shorts that people watched a brunch of in a row, and he was like, well, let's just be the only

ones who get to do that. Right, it went, and actually that's what's happening today in the car industry. Over the past like twenty to thirty years and even up till today. With what Tesla is trying to fight is like, you guys bought all of this electric technology back in the eighties so that you never had to release it because you controlled it all. So it was basically illegal starting in nineteen o eight to make a film that Thomas Edison didn't personally approve of. Uh, And he was

from the beginning very concerned with the moral character of films. Quote, in my opinion, nothing is of greater importance to the success of the motion picture interests than films of good moral tone. No thank you, which is always the best part. Somebody's like by my moral tones, Like, no, I understand what you're saying, But do you also understanding yourself defining that? Yeah, if you everyone judges their own morals. Yeah, everybody has

a moral tone. You're just saying yours is right. And in Edison's case, I think that meant he didn't want films to show immigrants, so well, I guess that's his

moral tone. One of the things happening during this period was what's known today as the Americanized the immigrant movement, which was a reaction to the fact that immigration into the United States had switched from being mostly people from the British Isles, Germany and Northwest Europe, to people from scary places like Russia, the Balkans and most horrifying of all, Italy. Yeah yeah, which we all know what happens when too many Italians get into a country. Good stuff, great espresso,

terrible pizza. I think people like just don't think enough about the time in our country where you know the difference between racism and prejudice, right, prejudices. I judge you based off what I know about you, and racism tends to be at judge you based off how you look. Yeah, so prejudice like was equal to like racism, but you had to identify like are you Irish? Are you Italian? And then once find out, then we prejudicize. Is that

a way we prejudicize you. But there was this time where it was like it wasn't based off color of skin. It was like this thing like, well you're from there, No thanks. They would say it was based off color of skin because a lot of people in nineteen o eight would have looked in an Italian, a lot of like American white people would have looked in an Italian

and said, well that's not a white man. Really. Yeah, the Irish were the last of the white people to become officially white essentially, but it was a process of being accepted as white for all of what we now just say, like, oh, everybody in fucking Europe is white as well, that's Europe. But that was not the case

from the beginning, and this is the period where it's starting. Well, I don't know much about Edison in specific, but I know this was a big factor in the movie industry because the Americanized the Immigrant movement campaigned for the regulation of the film industry. They were the first people to want to censor films, and so Edison was very much

sort of reacting to that. The Americanized the Immigrants movement was unsuccessful in actually creating laws to govern films, but their arguments clearly had an impact on people like Edison. A war started to brew in the nascent motion picture industry, and on one side were people like Edison. And uh, I'm going to read you a quote from a Moving Picture World, which is like one of the first industry

trade magazines. A critic wrote it in nineteen ten, and he gave a horrified description of a movie theater um and This is from the textbook Taking Fame to Market. So this will give you an idea of kind of what some people in the film industry, sort of on Edison side of things, were horrified of when they looked into a movie theater. The audience also stood for one or two high class films without any fuss, although we are sure they didn't understand what they were looking at

any more than they would a Chinese opera. I would have been more comfortable on board a cattle train than where I sat. There were five hundred smells combined in one One young lady fainted and had to be carried out of the theater. I can forgive that all right, as people with sensitive noses should not go slumming. But what is hardest to swallow is that the taste of the seething mass of human cattle are the tastes that have dominated, or at least set the standards of American

moving pictures. This is like a film critic in nineteen ten and he's commenting on the type of people in the movie theater that you're going to the movie you're slumming, Yes, but not based on people who are seeing movies, or but based on based on both the people who are seeing movies are a lot of them are immigrants and horror people because it's a very affordable way to spend your time, but also the people making movies and running

movie theaters were mainly lower class entrepreneurs who had come to the country from Europe and were either Jewish or Catholic immigrants, which at this point, if you're not a white Anglo Saxon Protestant, you're below what they would declare

white people on the totem pole. So that's a big factor in this is that these people who are Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and Catholic immigrants from Eastern Europe are moving into the United States and starting movie theaters and other people like them are going to see these shows, and the movies that are being made are being made to play to this audience, and that is scary to the whitest people who have ever lived. What are they watching?

I mean, they're probably not watching that much in the way of movies. I'm guessing nothing good because we don't really get it was low round entertainment. It was very low rent entertainment, very short, cheap kind of like it wasn't the opera or the orchestra, and you're not in this period seeing complicated movies with a three act structure that are very long, and that doesn't come until a little bit later in nineteen o nine. Because of this

trust Edison puts together, independent film basically becomes illegal. The now outlaw filmmakers call themselves Independence. They keep right on making movies, using illegal equipment and buying foreign film stock. To get around the trust. Edison forms a subsidiary, the General Film Company, to confiscate illegal equipment and basically bust into movie theaters and shut down on his because he

owns the patents. You can't make a movie unters for film. Yeah, and at this point the film industry is all in basically New York, the East Coast. But it's like the cops showed up and there was a fight between his people and the Independence. They would just say, well, we're recovering what we own exactly, and they've got the law on their side. These people are breaking the law by filming movies illegally, you know, because they don't have the right to use a movie camera to make a movie

if Edison doesn't approve of it. Yeah, Now the good news is Edison's plan backfired. The General Film Company's iron fist just pushed independence to get into manufacturing film them selves. So Edison's not I'm not going to sell you film,

I'm not going to sell you cameras. So these people who are making independent films and running small movie theaters start getting their own cameras from outside of the US because there's other people making movie cameras kind of on the edge, like they're definitely breaking the law a bunch, but you know, it's it's also nineteen o eight, nineteen o nine, so the law doesn't mean quite what it does today, which is why Edison's hiring goons to enforce it.

You know, so many of these independent early motion picture moguls were people like Carl Lamel. They were immigrants themselves, and Carl Lamel was born in southern Germany. He moved to the United States as a young man and worked a series of odd jobs until, in his recollection quote, one rainy night, I dropped into one of those hole in the wall five cent motion picture theaters. The pictures made me laugh. Although they were very short in the

projection jumpie. I liked them, and so did everybody. Else. I knew right away that I wanted to get into the motion picture business. So Lamel got into the business of running theaters. But then he became a distributor himself because he basically it was too much of a hassle to rely on the distributor to send him films, and

that also meant he was dependent on Edison Um. So he eventually starts his own production outfit, the Independent Motion Picture Company, in order to make films on his own terms, because he's just there's so much demand and Edison and his guys, the people who have actual approval, aren't making enough movies and they're sort of throttling the supply to people.

So a guy like Lambol's like, well, funk it. I'll just make my own movies and I'll rent them out the other theaters in addition to the theaters that I owned. In nineteen twelve, Carl Limley renamed his company, which had been the Independent Motion Picture Company Universal, where we get

Universal Studios. During the meeting where this was announced, he explained, quote, that's what we're supplying, Universal Entertainment for the Universe Ours Technica does note that he later admitted he'd gotten the name from a Universal pipe fitting struck he'd seen out

the window during this meeting. So I think Carl was just kind of literally the thing where somebody's like, what's your name and you're like, uh, pencil fold it from what was from That also proves like, don't put too much thought into it just didn't work, because it clearly it's worked. Everybody knows what Universal Pictures is, right. Uh So, Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers all started as essentially illegal film companies.

They fled from the East Coast to California, both because the fantastic sunlight made it easier to shoot on sort of the low tech ship that they were using in those days, but also because the distance helped protect them from Thomas Edison's wrath because you know, back then travel Act you were saying, is not what the law is now, because it's just like in the still running around to where you just hire your own cops. That's part of it.

There's also US marshals and stuff, but they've got to travel all the way across the country, and right, it just means everything takes longer. And these guys are basically playing a waiting game because they know that the trust are starting to be busted during this period of time, right, like Teddy Roosevelt. That's anything he was doing. So they're thinking is if we get out to California, we can make a shipload of money. We're off the radar. Yeah, when we do have to pay fines, will make enough

money to make it worthwhile. And the lengthening of sort of the time that everything will take eventually will win that. I was wondering when we started, how did we end up in California Fromburg? That's how we got it. Yeah. So the guy who wound up slaying the beast of the Motion Picture Patent Company was a dude named William Fox. He started out running a film rental company. Soon he started making movies to just like Lambley uh, and the

Fox Film Corporation became the foremost anti Edison studio. Fox sued the mp PC and one, finally ending the patent wars in nineteen fifteen. By that point, Hollywood had already become the center of American and global film production. Now all this is important to establish his background because Hollywood was built by immigrants who had fought bigotry upon arriving in America and had often fled persecution in their home countries.

Jewish people were overwhelmingly well represented within the industry. Here's a quote from Ben Irwan's The Collaboration quote. The men who created the studio system in Los Angeles where Jewish immigrants of Eastern European descent. These men included William Fox who founded Fox, It was b Mayor who ran MGM, Adolf Zucker who ran Paramount, Harry Cone who ran Columbia Pictures, Carl Lamley who ran Universal Pictures, and Jack and Harry

Warner who ran Warner Brothers. Of eighty five names engaged in production, one study noted in the nineteen thirties, fifty three are Jews. So this is a very Jewish dominated business. These are people who had to fight in order to be able to do their business against discrimination and stuff. So these are You would think that when Adolf Hitler rose to power in the early nineteen thirties, these diverse and used to fighting bigots movie moguls would have stood

up to try and halt the spread of fascism. You think that was their bread and butter, But you would be wrong. Throughout the first seven years the Nazis were in power, past the outbreak of World War two, zero major motion pictures were made that addressed the Hitler or the Nazis in a in a hugely negative LFE. There was one movie that kind of sort of did up until the outbreak of the war, but it came out in like nineteen Well, that's what I was gonna ask you.

So when they got here, when did they switch from making these nickel like quick short movies and start making longer ones. That really starts to happen around nineteen Like I said, I think it was nineteen o six was the first close to full length movie, was like an hour or something long. Nineteen ten was the birth of the star system. That's when these people, so number one these are, I think, is when they start doing talkies.

So in the silent movies, it becomes very useful to have someone the audience is familiar with who, They understand this person's gestures, their facial expressions and what because it's important for the medium. So nineteen ten is when movie stars start to become a thing. Which again nineteen fifteen is when the patent wars in. So by nineteen fifteen

we have the beginnings of Hollywood as we know it. Yeah, and I you know, from that episode that you did, people should check out if they haven't already about Behind the Bastards for Hitler, Like there, it was obvious what his agenda was. It's so interesting to me that there's this disconnect of this industry that has literally drived out of the idea of like showing viewpoints or opinions are

telling stories. That there's a disconnect of the people who have started this here in California that are like, yeah, we're not even yeah addressing it. Yeah, and we what what's undeniable? So this is a controversial thing that we're going to get into today. What's undeniable is that during the pre World War two years, but post the Nazis coming to power, Hollywood made almost no films whatsoever that even talked about the Nazis. The number of films that

mentioned Jewish people dropped by like sixty or seventy percent. Um. They became very very careful about not offending the Germans. Um the debate is over. You know. Harvard scholar been Urwand, who wrote the collaboration, essentially argues that the studios worked with the Nazis, and he presents compelling evidence to that point. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's a it's a good book studios run by predominantly Jewish, Yes, yes, and we'll we'll get into

how this all started. I do want to announce upfront that Urwand has some detractors, um, people who don't think collaboration is a fair term. And so I'll be getting in when where there are areas of controversy, I'll be getting into it a little bit because this is very far from settled history. But I think Irwan's arguments are more convincing than the other one. So that is kind

of largely the tact we're going to be taken here. Um. Now, Irwan traces the start of the collaboration to the film All Quiet on the Western Front, which came out in nineteen thirty, almost three years before Hitler was in charge, but during the period where Nazis had attained a lot of power in both the Reichstag and on the streets. Now. All Quiet on the Western Front was based off of a classic book about German soldiers in World War One,

It's It's Wonderful. Um. It was not an anti German film, but it was anti war and very critical of the pro war sentiment in the country that had driven Germany to ruin in World War One. It gives you a sympathetic oh yeah, like take on the German soldier. Oh yeah,

because it's it's a devastating emotionally um. But the Nazis hated it because again, like you remember that scene where like the boys are in class and their teachers making going to war seem like this like wonderful, awesome adventure, and they're all, yeah, horribly, Um, the Nazis did not want them, and yeah, yeah, the Nazis hated that because their Nazis they were trying to get we want we want to get kids excited about dying for the fatherland again.

So on the day the film was released in Germany, the Nazis in Berlin, organized by Joseph Gebel's, bought three D tickets to the seven pm showing. Nazis inside the theater who did and yelled at the movie and at one predetermined point started throwing stink bombs into the crowd and releasing mice. So like that was sort of there, before they're in power, how they would try to shut down a movie they didn't really, Yeah, like junior high kids like junior high kids. Yeah, I mean probably a

lot of them were teenagers. Yeah, yeah, Now, the Nazis protested for six days until the film was completely removed from German screens. Karl Lambley, founder of Universal, ordered a bunch of scenes cut from the film in order to please the German foreign Office, including that scenes with the teacher. He was the first big studio head to cave in

to Nazi demands. Now he died in nineteen thirty six, and to be totally fair, he helps smuggle like three Jewish people out of Germany during the Hitler years that he was alive. Yeah, I mean we could say that once he realized whole ship, yeah not good. But on what when beforehand, when it was just about money, he started the precedent of working with the Nazis in order to continue to sell films to Germany. He was the first of the studio heads that was like, yeah, this

is worth. This is the thing man, Like, even right now in our country where it's like you've really got to ask yourself, what side of history do you want to fall in on this? Even if it doesn't affect you now, yeah, like where do you want to fall on this ship? I mean, but the hard part is you gotta look at history from the perspective of people who don't know what's coming next. I know. But Leery, yeah, I mean you're because the Nazis are still saying all

this ship. Yeah, they still have all these attitudes, but you're like, well, they're kind of self contained and they're there and they're not really doing anything bad yet. So maybe I can moderate a whole group of people and makes you know, sell my whatever your product is, then I'll do it. But then ask like, well, what if it what if they start doing what they're talking about? And I think that I don't want to like judge Lambley too harshly because clearly he was a what what

uh Limley? Well, yeah, I don't want to judge Limley too harshly because clearly he was a good person who like just fucked up. I agree with we know, we know we have the precedent now that we should be looking at with hindset, but I just be careful. Yeah, very And this is again one of the things that the people who don't like Rwan criticize him over is essentially thinking too much from the perspective of people living in the present day who know what the Nazis did

And that's a fair patamt. Both things be true. Yeah, can't you be like even couldn't it possible for him to be like, Yeah, I funked up on that early stuff. Yeah. Um, once I saw the legitimacy of the horrors of what they were doing, Uh, asked me how hard I worked to try and save people? Like, yeah, both of those things can be true. And it's also true that while he worked hard to save people, he didn't work hard

to make anti Nazi movies. So right, we're going to get into the rest of this collaboration and sort of the history of Hollywood in the Nazis. But first it is time for some ads for products. I understand you're you're a big fan of products. I love a good product. Do you do you also love doritos? Daniel Van enjoy a Derrito? Well that's fantastic. Why don't you and I go have a quick derrito break and then we'll we'll we'll let these ads roll for everybody else and we're back.

We just had a delicious fistful of of derrito's. Are you on a little half and half? Oh yeah? And cool Ranch that's a that's we call that the Nacho ranch, dangerous place for a horse. That's not a complete joke anyway, Let's move on now that we're fortified. So in April of ninety three, around a month after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, the movie King Kong debuted around the world.

Uh It ran in Germany for quite a while and was very successful until a professor with the German Health Office called it quote nothing less than an attack on the nerves of the German people. He said, it quote provokes our racial instincts to show a blond woman of the Germanic type in the hand of an ape. It harms the healthy racial feelings of the German people. The torture to which this woman has exposed her mortal fear, and the other horrible things that one would only imagine

in a drunken frenzy are harmful to German health. In a drunken frenzy, yeah, you're the one on the things you would imagine happening to her while you're drunk. Yeah, yeah, it's normal to imagine a woman getting molested by an ape when you're drunk. As a doctor in Germany, I can say this. You know, if he was a Nazi, I mean, he probably right, It's I don't know this specific guy. He was certainly okay enough to maintain his job when the Nazis took over, which meant he was

willing to He was vetted on some level. Yeah, he was vetted on some level. 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 is unbearable even that tone, Isn't that even in itself part of the whole how we got to World War Two in the Nazi Party for the German people, like it's a pride yeah, because of how much pride was lost in

this world War is wondrous war. Yes, that now, that's part of the whole thing. Like other people can do what they want, Germans and we need to hold ourselves to a higher esteem. We are a proud people and once we route out this evil within our country, we will be the best country in the world and eventually take it all over. And it's this like in America, we've always sort of had this like attitude that like, yeah, we can be free and easy because we just like

landed on the continent with all of the resources. You know, everybody happened to die that was here before us, oddly enough, and in Germany they're like everybody around us wants to kill us, and we have to be the hardest sons of bitches in order to like, Yeah, I think that is a big fact. And they weren't. Russia was Russia was the Russia was the hardest sons of bitches will

tell you that. Yeah, yeah. Uh So. The professor went on to warn that quote psychopaths or women would in particular be vulnerable to being thrown into a panic by the film Psychopaths or Women, either one either because you're either gonna go do that to a woman or you're gonna you're gonna feel like that's gonna happen. Do you. Oh see, you actually found a more like a friendlier interpretation of that. I thought he was just saying psychopaths and women are the same thing. Oh, but no, I

think you are probably right. Is that he's like, well, either men who want to molest women will see this as a call to do it, or women will be scared by I think you're probably right, um, credit to the Nazi not me. No no, no, no no, I'm not calling you a Natz. I almost never call our guest Nazis. Thank you, thank you. I'd like to keep that straight going. Yeah. Uh so the movie was not banned, but its title was changed. Yes, it was changed from King Kong to quote the Fable of King Kong, an

American tricken sensation film. So it's like rolls off the tongue, doesn't that of course? Yeah, that should have been the title. Yeah, it's puter Jackson, that's you miss you fool. It's a tricken sensation film. What does that mean? A Trickensen? The Americans have worked up this skookie little idea, I think it. Yeah. It was meant to make it seem less serious, to make it. Yeah, it's a fable like German people are

used to scary fable. So if we present this as a fable rather than you know, this as a joke, Yeah, exactly exactly. They were trying to get the commentary bingo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh. Now. Dr Ernst Seeger, who will be hearing about a bit in this podcast, was Germany's chief censor, and he had other issues with the film. He was sorry, opened right, it had already been it's already been out, it's already been a huge hit. It's been out in Germany for months,

I think, I think months. Yeah. So he was fine with the idea of what he called an uran utan. And I just want you to look at the spelling of randutan. Is it similar to orangutang? It is, that's what they used to call them. What the idea of a ran newtan ran neutan. It's almost written phonetically, Yeah it is, yeah, which I suspect ran new ran Neutan randuitan.

So he was fine with the idea of an Irandutan falling in love with a quote blonde woman of the Germanic type, because that was in line with popular racist wisdom of the time, which was that people who aren't white lust over white women. So he was actually okay with that women. He was like, yeah, this show is a real thing in nature that we have to be guarded about. Yeah, yeah, he's I mean, he's a jackass. Sure we'll be hearing a lot of old timey racism

from this particular Nazi. Uh So Dr Seeger didn't object to that to the film because of the monkey molesting the woman thing. He objected to the film because it showed a commuter train being derailed, and he was afraid that that would make people less trusting for public transportation.

God for us, funny, that is a very German thing, though, to watch this movie and be like, what if it makes people scared of the train, Like he has an issue with mechanical malfunctions, like they you've got to show that we can build stuff better than Yeah, you can't. The German people think that we endorsed that something would be built. Not well, I I German engineering would never have a train derailment. For what it's worth, Hitler loved King Kong. Yeah, Hitler had no problem. He was. He

was way into the movie. He loved it. The collaboration quotes a German foreign press chief who said, quote, one of Hitler's favorite films was King Kong, the well known story of a gigantic ape who falls in love with a woman no bigger than his hand. Hitler was captivated by this atrocious story. He spoke of it often and had its screens several times. Really, I can't hear that

and not think. Do you remember when them that Fire and Fury book came out and somebody posted a fake excerpt from it where they were talking about Trump having the monkey channel made for him. It reminds me of that, Like, like Hitler just staring at this ape on the screen, just spell bound, do you get just really liked the idea of like a creature that like could not be contained, had like he because how he saw himself, It's like,

I'm bigger and they can bust free. I can like there had to be some sort of grandiose delusion that he had in that. I think I and I'm on I'm on the record here. I think Hitler was just a nerd. I think before that was a commentary. I think if Hitler had just a monster and he thought it was cool, the the special effects were groundbreaking at

the time. So I think that's why he loved it for the same reason people love Jurassic Park in Ninetich just probably And I think that's the kind of guy Hitler was, because he was he was very obsessed with fantasy sort of fiction, you know, as a young man. So I suspect that was the thing. Now. Germany in the thirties was an important market for Hollywood prior to World War One. It had been like the second largest

foreign market for Hollywood films. And then you know, after nineteen twenty, when Hollywood was allowed back in the country, accepted between like twenty and sixty movies every year that

the Nazis were in power. There there were rules in Germany stating that like they were supposed to be no more than one Hollywood movie for every German movie made, but they relaxed those because the German film industry had trouble and because the people like Hitler, yeah yeah, Germans loved American movies, um, and we're it was a major market for Hollywood. There was a lot of money in being able to sell films to the Germans. Um. Most of the major studios set up German branches during the

Weimar years. Executives from MGM, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox all kept up a brisk correspondence with Hitler's adjutants during the period of time the Nazis were in charge. Some of them even signed letters Heil Hitler, no ship. Yeah yeah, yeah, they all that's some wrong side of history right there. Should I write Should I write Aisle Hitler on it? I could just like sincerely regards, like dude, what's the harm. You know he's gonna like it. You know he's gonna

like it. We're all the way over here in America. Do you want to keep selling movies? Yeah? Right, trust me, it's never going to come back at somebody in auction in sixty years, in the dismay of your future family is going to be selling a letter where you wrote, Yeah, and what's in two years? He'll be out of power. He's so crazy? How could this keep going on? Do you imagine the feeling of like ninety three and you fucking wrote Hitler? Oh yeah, you'd be like, oh my god,

I hope that gets burnt in with the books. He's throwing my letter in with the boy. I hope the Germans are bad at keeping records. It's actually the thing their best at. Oh ship Yeah. So, like every dictator I've ever read about, Adolf Hitler was a huge movie buff. He watched uh at least one Hollywood film every single night, pretty much that he was in power in his own private movie theater. Usually the only time Hitler stopped talking,

as a general rule, is when he was watching a movie. Um, yeah, Tarantino knew this ship man with glorious pastards, get him to a movie, Get him to a movie. He loved movies, and he tended to either really like films or hate them. When Irwan was searching the collaboration, he went into the Buns Archive, which is like a big German government archive, and he found Hitler's thoughts on dozens and dozens and

dozens of movies. Yeah. Yeah, And he would usually write like I liked it, or it was it was good, or it was great, or you know, I switched it off for whatever reason. Um. He would say that if he didn't like a movie, he would say it was bad, very bad, particularly bad. No, no, no, I know, I'm just being trump. Well, he would say bad movies were repulsive or the most potent crap, which is potent crap. Potent crap, Yeah, potent crap. That's that's got to be abandoned, Berlin,

potent potent crap. Can you guess what Hitler's favorite Hollywood movie was? M Let's see you didn't see anything after? Rightly? Yeah, which is a shame. I really think he would have liked white Christmas. Oh, he would have loved white Christmas. There's a lot of like racist stuff in that TONSU dude, I don't know tell Mickey Mouse really Yeah, yeah, he ordered multiple Mickey Mouse cartoons In nineteen thirty seven. Joseph Gebbels was trying to get him a Christmas gift and

wound up settling upon a shipload. Disney come up in any of this stuff in Hollywood, but they actually got out of the country pretty early because they were kind of a small studio at this point, and so like dealing with we'll get into that a little bit, like they weren't a huge factor in here. But he loved Mickey Mouse. Yeah, that's you don't want to be on that end of the room, yeah, Hitler. Joseph Gebel's One Christmas gave him a bunch of Mickey Mouse films, And

this is what Gebels wrote in his diary. I presented the Few. I present the Fear with thirty two of the best films from the last four years and twelve Mickey Mouse films, including a wonderful art album for Christmas. He's very pleased and extremely happy for this treasure that will hopefully bring him much joy and relaxation. Hitler loved Mickey Mouse, which and salam Bin Laden left, Tom and

Jerry what. Yeah, the CIA is archive because the CIA posted up all the stuff we didn't episode on this, but all the stuff that was on a Sama's hard drives. Dozens of episodes of Tom and Jerry really, yeah, tons of them. That sad. There's nothing to do with this information. That's the sad ascending to any cartoon. What Tom and Jerry isn't the final episode they kill each other, they kill him? I think so. Yeah, I had no idea where there is an episode where they killed themselves and

then the ghosts and they float away. It's like dark, dude, that's extremely dark. Yeah, that's that actually sounds more fitting of Hitler. The Germans are into dark myths for kids. And you know what, then, I hope he saw that whole Like remember Disney made that propaganda film about the kids. Yeah, I hope he saw and he was so pissed. Yeah, I hope he just hate He was so mad he felt betrayed by Disney. It's frustrating because we don't know much about what he thought about the anti We know

he saw some of the anti Hitler films. He watched The Great Dictator twice. Really, we don't know what he thought about it. That's not recorded, but we know we watched it twice. Wow. Yeah. And we'll talk more about The Great Dictator at the end. But that's always one of the big mysteries to me is like, what did he like it? Like, was Hitler watching The Great Dictates flattered? Yeah, because it's I mean, it's one of the great movies. Yeah, and they made one of bottom they made one about him.

They made many, but like, yeah, but they made one about him that like was a groundbreaking film. Yeah, So yeah, I'm sure he probably he may he may have. Anyway, Hitler was chiller. The point of this is that Hitler was actually a lot chiller about movies than most of his sensors. Um there were numerous cases of films that had difficulty getting through Nazis sensors that were nonetheless loved by Hitler. Uh. He seemed to be particularly vulnerable to

being influenced by films. He actually had a film called tip Off Girls turned off midway through during a scene, like there was a scene in the movie where these people are robbing trucks by having women light down in the street and then the truck stops in front of the woman, and then like gangsters will rob the trucks. Hitler had the movie stopped right after this scene so he could go write a law, a one sentence law

that was immediately put into German like legal codes. Quote, whoever sets up a roadblock with an hint to commit a crime will be punished by death. So Hitler watches this movie about people hijacking trucks like this and like runs out of the theater to go and make a new law. Influenced pretty wild, right, Yeah, it's just like a kid. He is like a kid. I mean, I

mean a horrible fucking monster kid. I'm not minimalizing, but like on this level and this energy of his life, he's like, oh no, oh my god, we have to change the law. Yeah. So Hitler was clearly aware of the impact movies had on him and on everybody else. Um. He believed the spoken word was the only way to push large scale societal change, and he noted that just as people were more convinced by his speeches when they happened after dark, movie screened at night were more convincing. Yeah,

still true, Hitler. You know, comedy same way. Yeah, absolutely, doing stand up comedy and daylight is not There's something about the night for us as human beings that we allow more in fluence or just sway into our minds. It's where we allow ourselves to go places mentally through like a spoken person, whether that's a speech or stand up, Like how many I don't know, you just think about so many big things has happened at night? I don't know.

I think, like if I think personally in my own self, like why I'm more influence able at night, It's because when I wake up in the morning, I usually get a bunch of ship to do, and so like I'm not thinking about life. I'm thinking about the stuff that I need to do in my life. And then you get around tonighttime and you're probably done with most of that.

I don't maybe that's a factor, just that like when you're going out to a movie at night or to see a comedy show you finished, you're more willing to think about stuff because you don't have anything pressing other than this thing, you know what. I don't know. I'm sure that's probably even more true for like Friday night and Saturday night comedy shows and movies, because you're you're the rest of your world is turned off for a

few couple of days hopefully. Yeah, that makes sense, And it's one of those things like, you know, Hitler is Hitler, but when he says something about how people react to being propagandized, too, are trying to like convinced when he talks about how speeches impact people should probably listened to him on that stuff. The guy knew what he was talking about when it comes to that. So pre Hitler, Germany and many other countries had limited how many films

Hollywood could export. Uh. In ninth January ninety two, a non Nazi German Dr. Martin Freudenthal, had traveled to Hollywood to study the studio system. This was not uncommon. Canada, Chile, China, and other countries at all sent representatives to Hollywood in the early thirties to make sure that their people were portrayed accurately and inoffensively in films. Right, So the Germans aren't the only people who are concerned about their representation

in movies. Obviously, the French were particularly emphatic about this. One Frenchman Baron Valentine Mandelstam had convinced Yeah, really great, sounds like a German name. Actually, um actually convinced his government to ban all Warner Brothers films in France until Warner Brothers paid him for the advice that he was giving them. So like, the Germans are not the only people trying to influence Hollywood. They're not the only people going in there with kind of like strong arm tactics.

When the criticisms have been Irwan's book, the collaboration is that he doesn't go into all of this quite enough. It is important to note that the US also had a serious censorship bonner at this time. This had started

in the nineteen twenties. Like I said that the idea of movie stars who really drove films had come about after nineteen ten um, and so during the twenties you had both an economic boom obviously it's the Roaring twenties, but also the first generation ever of rich, famous Hollywood actors. Several of these people died of drug overdoses and were revealed of having, you know, being homosexual or bisexual, like

that was a very common thing. There were murders. The stuff that happened has always been a factor in Hollywood was new at this point and it was shocking to people. And this all came to a head in the summer of nineteen one when Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle was the biggest name in comedy. Uh, he was you could call him the twenties equivalent of a guy like Chris Farley almost um Paramount interesting because Chris Father was supposed to play Fatty Arbuckle Uh in a biographical film. I did not

know that and before he could do it. Well, that's we'll get into what what that is because we're gonna talk more about Fatty Arbuckle and sort of the first moral scare in Hollywood that led to the birth of the American censorship apparatus. That is important for us to understand the context of all this. But first it's time for products. Yeah you didn't see it, but he pumped his arms. Yeah all right, Well listen to this the

ads and with your ears and we're back. Uh, we're back, and we're talking about Fatty Arbuckle and the birth of censorship in Hollywood. So you said he's like the biggest community, He's he's the biggest star in the world. Right in n Paramount Pictures had just given him a three million dollar eighteen film contract, which was the biggest contract in history at the time. So he's a uh, this is

still part of the system. Yeah, he's not doing any other movies for any other one else but Paramount because of this contract. But he's he's fucking loaded because three million dollars in nineteen one is like all of the money today. Um. So, to celebrate his success, one of Fatty Article's friends through a three day Labor Day bacchan all party in San Francisco, which is, of course one of the great drinking towns in history. Now this is during prohibition, but these guys are movies star so they

just they're able to find liquor anyway. It's like finding drugs now. Uh. Now, Fatty did not enter the party in good spirits. He visited a mechanic slightly before the trip and accidentally sat on an acid soaked rag, so his ass was covered in second degree burn. Yeah, I love it. When did you start all that? He said he did not have a good trip. He did not

have a good time before the trip. Okay, so before he leaves for his back and all San Francisco vender and Labor Day party, which I still that sounds like a great labored It does sound like a great labor So he where's the app He's in a mechanics getting his car worked on, and there's an acid soaked rag, and that someone that burns his ass for batteries the same where are you getting acid? I don't know. I assume acid was all over the place. And that's why you never sit down and be like cool if I

sit here you asked that question. No, that's the acid, jass on, That's where we keep the acid. Right if I am a mechanic, right, and you know how when you go to a mechanic and they're like, don't enter the garage area, or like owner only enter the garage are with one of our employees. I would also post underneath that sign here's why and have the story of Fatty Arbuckle city his ass on an acid soaked rag. It is the if this was a movie starring Fatty Arbuckle,

this is exactly what would have happened. Are fat funny protagonist burns and then he's got to sit on a donut the whole movie and it's it's funny. What do you mean, Fatty? What do you mean you're not you don't know if you're coming to the party. All right, Look, I'm at the mechanic. Sure, as one does. Sat down right, don't you get set of standard around? Of course I do. Yeah, don't you wish sometimes we still had those horse and boggies. Don't get me started. Why what happened? I have acid as,

I have acid ass. So Fatty Arbuckle shows up to this party with his ascid ass and he goes to sleep, wakes up in the morning and there's a shipload of people in the rooms that they've rented. There's a big party. Um, so he gets drunk. He starts to have a good time, and he meets a year old actress and fashion model named Virginia rap Are Buckle and rap. One version of the story is that our Buckle and rap go back into a room and have sex and somehow her bladder

winds up punctured. Um. The myth is that he crushed her to death. To death. Yeah, that's that's one of the myths, that Fatty Arbuckle crushed a woman to death. There's no evidence of that. Did she die? She she totally died. Okay, hold on, so everybody goes into separate rooms. No, there's two different versions of the story. Sorry. One woman who's possibly a con woman had a history of being a con woman before this. Claimed to be a friend of Rap, but there's no evidence of that. There's no

evidence they'd ever known each other. She just might have tried to jump onto this exactly. It's tragedy train. And in court she basically claimed that he sexually assaulted Rap and her bladder wound up punctured and that's why she died. But was she found dead the next morning? No, no, no,

She lingered for several days. They first rented a hotel room for her because she was sick, and then after a day or two, they took her to a hospital because they're like, oh, this isn't getting better, and this is like nineteen ladder tend to get pop from a punch. Well, sorry, I feel like I'm jumping out that I don't really know. Don't we know is that in the autopsy there's no signs of violence on the body. Um and that Arbuckle and multiple other guests claimed that they never had sex

and we're never alone together. They claimed that she had been drinking and started complaining that she couldn't breathe and like complaining of abdominal pain, and then they got her a hotel room to try to like chill her out and whatnot. And you know, she died several days later. We don't know what happened. So one theory is they had sex, maybe concerns real or non consensual, but either way, in the course of that his either weight or aggression or just yeah, harmed her in a way that eventually

killed her. Yes. And the other theory is she just drank a lot, somehow rumptured her own bladder, she had some sex with anybody. There's no signs of any sort of abuse or sex, and there's no signs of violence violence exactly, and they put her in a hotel to be like, yeah, go sleep off the thing that's killing you, and then sure enough she slept it off forever. Well, they took her to a hospital, but then she died

in the hospital. Yeah, it doesn't really like it seems like Arbuckle was probably innocent with what we know today because this case has been relitigated for decades um. But at the time there was a huge court case about it, and it exposed the wild lifestyles, illegal drinking, in general

debauchery of Hollywood A listers. So this led the Motion picture Studios to get scared because they were scared that the government was going to come in and regulate the whole industry because this really yeah, this was this was like shocking to people at the time. Yeah, because you don't have what we have today everybody. This is death's murders, suicides, and drug scandal like are the only times the general American public is hearing about what the hell these celebrities

are doing. Yeah, used to be you can literally just you just do whatever you wanted. A lot of times you had enough money to make people not say anything about it. And this is also a time where like people are shocked at the idea of a woman having sex with someone who wasn't husbands like, so this is this is shocking two people at the time. They get really angry, and there's a fear that the government's going

to come in and regulate the film industry. So in order to avoid that, the big studios try to get ahead of this by creating the Motion Picture Production Code. In N two, this becomes this. Basically, they create the m p a A because this is where the m p A comes from, and the head of the m p a A at first is a guy named William Hayes, who was a former Postmaster General. UM. One of Hayes's first acts was to ban Fatty Arbuckle from ever appearing

in another movie. Yeah. Now that band was reversed eight later, but it was too This is the end of Fatty's career is like a big star, um and this is the end of him being a part of this podcast because he was not a Nazi. Uh So, I just this sets up where Hollywood is at the time, because again, one of the criticisms of Rwan's book is that he talks about how all these Hollywood studios collaborated with the Nazis, but he doesn't focus enough on how everybody was censoring

movies back then. So I want to make sure we're giving that sort of background. Um. Now. In nineteen thirty, the m p A adopted the Production Code, which is more commonly known as the Hayes Code, and the Haze Code basically laid out all the things you couldn't do in movies. So when the code was announced, Hayes said this quote. The code sets up high standards of performance

from motion picture producers. It states the considerations which good taste and community value make necessary in this universal form of entertainment. The code decreed that no picture quote laurel lower the moral standards of those who see it. Now, this is also like, this is in response to the

public outcry of the scandal of like what's happening in Hollywood. Right, it's a bunch of different scanals, so our buffets that they're like, oh, in this in their personal life, they're acting like this, yeah, but as far as what they put on film, will make sure that that makes you

feel good about your quote moral code. Yeah, because this is like that's the basic idea is that Hollywood gets criticized for being too too lascivious two out there, and some of the movies were a little bit more before

the production code. You know, you could get away with more nothing that we would consider shocking today, but for the time it was so this was essentially the industry being like, well, all right, we've got to stay within the lions anywise, we're gonna get shut down by the government.

We're gonna pun intended project a good image, yeah, exactly, and so and part another factor in this is that like in I think it is the they start making talkies and so that there are more concerns then, because film is growing from a novelty to a serious fact at the center of like American culture, big industry exactly. So that's why in nineteen thirty they clamped down even further and make this production coke. Um. So again, no picture is allowed to lower the moral standards of those

who see it. Uh. It states that the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, sin or evil. Um. So, like eight percent of the movies that have come out this year are already banned. You can't even have a Sopranos. Yeah, no, of course, not Jesus Christ, let alone breaking bad. Um. Suggestive dancing was banned, as was kissing with too much lust. It was forbidden to insult religion or show the use of

illegal drugs. Also forbidden was interracial romance, the concept of revenge and depicting a crime in any way that might give people an idea of how to actually commit that crime. The concept of revenge and what was the lass? Uh, you can't show someone committing a crime in a way that actually would inform people how to do that, which is still something like you can't and we lost that boat in nineteen in the eighties when mcgeivers showed everybody how to make a pipe point on TV and then

a kid went out and did it. Well, I feel like that's a public service. The only thing that's Daniel, the only thing that's going to stop a bad guy with a pipe bomb is a good guy with a kid. Yeah, a good kid year old with a pipe bomb. Boy, we don't talk about pipe bombs enough anymore. Yeah, because all the guns, one thing at a time. Brother, all right, So um. In the Collaboration, ben Erland argues that studios work directly with the Nazi government in a way that

was unique and novel. Um, who did this? This is the guy who wrote this book. Operation. Again, I'm trying to give both sides of this. So you gotta set up that censorship is everywhere and other countries are also agitating to have films censored because they're offended at one. But Erland argues that the way the studios worked with the Nazi government was unique and novel, even given all of this context, and I do think his argument has

a lot of water. The main argument is there or not it was a collaboration where the studios were actually working with the Nazis, or if it was just normal censorship. So I'm gonna let you make your own mind up on that. I'm gonna let you the listener, make your mind upon that. I'm gonna try to sort of present

both sides of this. Um. What no one doubts is that during the time the Nazis were in power, up until World War Two started UH, references to Nazis and references to Jewish people were severely curtailed in movies and

in fact often cut out entirely. UM. Now, one thing everyone seems to agree on is that greed was a major factor behind this, because in nineteen thirty two, the Germans introduced Article fifteen into their legal code, which stated that quote the allocation of permits may be refused for films the producers of which, in spite of warnings issued by the competent German authorities, continue to distribute on the world market films the tendency or effective which is detrimental

to German prestige. So the Germans now say that we can stop. So they have to hand out permits in order for like a studio to sell them a movie, and they're doing like six to a year or something like that. Generally, most studios they're going to need about ten to a dozen movies accepted to make a profit in Germany. So what what Article fifteen said is that all permits to a film producer can be stopped if they distribute anywhere in the world a movie that is

detrimental to German prestige. Yeah, so this is opposed to like France who was like, we're not putting your movies out until you take advice on how we want to be seen Germany saying we're gonna stop you if you do a movie anywhere in the world that we don't we don't like exactly. So that starts to be how the Germans approach things. It's like, we will cut Hollywood off from Germany if you make movies anywhere that we

don't like. So yeah, this is now, this is ninety two, So this is when the Nazis have a lot of power in Germany, but they're not in control yet. So it's important to note that this is a lot of Germans are sore about Hollywood because during World War One, Hollywood had made a lot of anti German pictures, right, So like this is not just a Nazi thing, but the Nazi he's really amp it up to the nth level. So that that German guy who came to Hollywood Dr Freuden Tall to sort of like talk to them about

how they represented Germans. Um he was. He had been able to get the Hayes office to cancel a paramount movie about the sinking of the Lusitania, and he'd also been able to secure edits to a movie set inside of German pow camp. So he he went over there and he was able to actually get Hollywood to change

some movies to make them more friendly to Germans. And when he returned to Germany eight when he returned to Germany from his time in l A, he wound up landing there eight days after the Enabling Act, which is what made Hitler a dictator. So eight days after Hitler takes power for real, Dr Freuden Tall meets with several German officials, including Joseph Gebel's I'm going to quote from

the collaboration here. Everyone listened to Freud and Tall outlined a brand new plan to combat the hate film problem in the United States. He began by pointing out that the most successful moments of his trip had been his interactions with the heads of Hollywood studios. He had received permission from the Hayes office to meet directly with Carl Lamley of Universal Pictures, and as a result of their meeting, Limley had agreed to postpone the sequel to All Quiet

on the Western Front entitled The Road Back. Throughout the rest of the year, freuden Tall had met with Lambley's son, Karl Lambley Jr. And many more pictures were changed in Germany's favor. Naturally, freuden Tall said Universal's interest in collaboration is not platonic, but is motivated by the company's concern for the well being of its Berlin branch and for the German market. Other studio heads were just as obliging.

An executive at r KO promised that whenever he made a film involving Germany, he would work quote in close collaboration with the local consul general. An executive Fox said that he would consult a German representative in all future cases as well. Even United artists offered quote the closest collaboration. So you can see why Erland picked the title the

Collaboration for his book. Yeah, it does seem like there was an active working relationship with these studios and them saying we know, look, we get what you guys are doing over there. Yeah, we want to work with you. Yeah, don't ban our films. Let's work together so we can make sure we can sell our films and Germany will

get enough movies and we don't offend you guys. And is it too far of a reach to say that if you make a movie the Nazis, like all the Nazis are gonna go see it, Like if it's endorsed by the government, not see it. They would all go see it, right, I mean not all of their they're very it's very popular. And well, actually we're going to get into that in a little bit. So one of the things that's interesting here is the Nazis have sort of come down to us from history is like masters

of propaganda. They did not consider themselves masters of propaganda. The Nazis considered Hollywood to be by far the best at propaganda, and so we will be we will be discussing that quite a bit later on um so Freud and Tall suggested that someone should permanently have the job of being the German liaison to Hollywood. This person's job would be to educate and train film industry personnel so that anti German movies were never made in the first place.

I think fred Fred Tall probably wanted that job for himself, but he didn't wind up getting it. Diplomat named George Gisling actually got the job, and jis Ling's first big task was a movie called Captured, which featured scenes of German soldiers beating up captured British soldiers and denying them water. Justisling demanded that this all be cut, and when it wasn't, he flipped his ship. Captured was declared by the Nazis to be the worst hate film since World War One.

Jis Ling activated Article fifteen and stopped Warner Brothers from receiving permits from any more films. Ever, in nineteen thirty four, the company closed its Berlin office. A scholar named Doherty, who also has written about this period of time, calls them quote the first of the majors to withdraw on principle rather than work with the Nazis. So Warner Brothers are of the studios, kind of the heroes at this point, because they they made their movie. They made their movie,

they refused they did change it. Somewhat because he had some Justling had some points that they're like, okay, yeah, maybe that is unfair, but they still made a movie that the Nazis didn't like, and the Nazis completely cut them out of German so they said, fine, let's closer office. We're not going to keep fine with you. Well, they closed their office. I mean, they lost a lot of money, but yeah, they closed their office and they left her

I mean they were forced to leave Germany. So on March nineteen thirty three, UFA, the major German film company at the time, They're big studio that was actually making movies in Germany, fired most of its best writers, directors, crew members, and talent. I'm gonna give you one guess as to why they fired all these people at once. Yep. And it turns out that most of their film industry

people in Germany were Jewish too. Um. The Salesman's Syndicate, a Nazi organization, sent letters to American film studios with offices in Germany and ordered them to fire all of their Jewish employees as well. The Salesman's Syndicate, which is a was a Nazi organization like a Nazi almost like a labor union for a Nazi salesman sent letters to American film studios with offices in Germany and ordered them to fire all of their Jewish employees. So the Nazis fired.

The Nazis ordered their big film company to fire all of its Jewish employees. And then they go to the American studios working in Germany and they said the Lemley and all these other people, like, hey, every you can't have any Jewish people employed in Germany. You know, they're not saying you have to fire you Jewish people, and we'll get to that later. We'll get to that later. But they start by saying, you can't employ Jewish people within Germany now, and fairness of the companies, none of

the studios obliged instantly. First they sent all of their Jewish workers home instantly on mental preservation leave. So they put these guys out on paid leave, and eventually Hollywood

reached an accord with the Nazis. They put up lists each studio of their best Jewish employees in Germany, and the German government would grant those employees exemptions and actually granted them protection to like state protection to the Jewish employees of these these movie studios, but most of the Jewish employees of all these studios were fired, so they did come to an arrangement. The Nazis aren't getting their whole way yet, but also the studios fire and most

of their Jewish employees in Germany. Um so, uh, these people were able to stay at their jobs until January I, nineteen thirty six, when the Nazis categorically banned Jewish people from working in the film industry. The collaboration basically credits the delay to the fact that because the Germans had fired all of the Jewish people from their own film production company, they weren't able to make enough movies, and

so they couldn't. They didn't want to push Hollywood that much because they they understood movies were valuable for people's morale, and so they were like, well, okay, we can't make many movies right now because we just fired everyone who knows how to make movies, So we won't push the studios quite yet because we need a couple of years before we do to rebuild our own domestic film industry.

Um so, actually, for a while, this goes great for the Hollywood studios, and in fact, in nineteen thirty three, they sell sixty five pictures because they're the only people making movies that Germany German citizens can get. Yeah, and the Germany can't really make movies for yeah. So in you know, in the boom Yeah, and it's a boom in In In nineteen thirty two, before Hitler was in power, they'd sold fifty four films to Germany and nineen thirty three they sell sixty five. So this is seeven great

for the studios. You know, you gotta deal, you gotta work with the Nazis a little bit, but by god, the money comes in. It's like a curse. Yeah, it's a good it's a solid amount of money. And these guys, you know, it's it's an expensive industry. So midway through nineteen thirty three, a screenwriter named Herman manka witza Witz yeah, who wrote he was the guy who wrote Citizen Kane. Later um so he decided to write a movie that explicitly attacked the Nazis and brought up the attacks Jewish

people had to endure under Nazi rule. He wrote a screenplay titled The Mad Dog of You. This is the same year, so he's early on this, He's very early on this. This is when the studios He's already being like ships going down. This is fucked up, right, The Nazis are a problem. Somebody should make a movie in the paper and go after exactly. So he writes a script uh and a producer, Sam Jeff, buys the idea

and leaps into trying to film it. Jeff was so shocked that there were no other anti Nazi movies in production in Hollywood that he got terrified someone was about to beat him to the punch. So he takes out a full page ad in the Hollywood Reporter that says this,

which try to imagine anyone doing this today. Because I sincerely believe that in the mad Dog of Europe, I have the most valuable motion picture property I have ever possessed, and because I wish to take sufficient time to prepare and film it with the infinite care that it's subject merits, I hereby ask the motion picture industry to kindly respect my priority rights. So he puts out an ad being like, no one else make an anti Nazi movie right now,

I'm making a great anti Nazi. This is what Dante's Peak should have done with Volcano. Oh yes, or the prestige this is important other magician movie that came out or what's the other one? Deep impact and Arma should have asked for priority. Yeah, and I'm making the definitive f Hitler movie nobody else, everybody. I don't know what you guys are doing or if I get to be first, but hold off if you're hold off, because this is gonna be the funk Hitler movie to funk all fun

Hitler movies. Um Now, I've never read the screenway screenplay. Irwan who wrote the collaboration, did, and he he doesn't think it was very good, but who knows. I have no way to judge this. But it did contain frank depictions of Nazi violence against Jewish and would have been groundbreaking because that did not happen before nineteen forty period, and no movie was there a depiction of Nazi violence against Jewish people before nineteen So the movie would have

been groundbreaking if it had ever been made. See, Jeff was not trying to release the movie in Germany, so j Lyn couldn't bring Article fifteen against him since his company he wasn't working with one of the big studios. He started his own independent production company. Um so there wasn't anything that Jisling could do to them, because like, what, we're not in Germany, what are you gonna do? Well, Jisling went to the Hayes office, or at least Irlan

suspects that Jisling went to the Hayes office. We don't exactly know what happened. Urwan suspects that Jisling went to the Hayes office and threatened to ban all American movies from Germany if the studios didn't make sure that this movie didn't get made. There is no hard evidence of

this act. What we know is that Will Hayes, America's chief censor, had a meeting with Sam jeff and Herman Mankowitz, very shortly after that, and Hayes allegedly told them quote because of the large number of Jews active in the motion picture industry in this country, the charge is certain to be made that the Jews as a class are behind an anti Hitler picture and using the entertainment screen

for their own personal propaganda purposes. The entire industry because of this is likely to be indicted for the action of a mere handful. So I think it's probable that Jissling did go to Hayese and be like, I'm gonna ban America from Germany, American movies from Germany if you don't stop this ship. Because he's certainly bore. Hay was just unprovoked looking out for the interest of the industry so that they could keep making money in Germany. Also possible.

I mean either way, yeah, either way, either way, it's it's gutless. Yeah. Um. So Jeaff wound up selling the script to a guy named Rosen because he couldn't He couldn't raise the money himself. Al Rosen was an early film industry agent. He got as far as buying film style and casting who would have been the very first hitler ever in motion picture history other than the actual hits, but the project died on the vine. He also couldn't

find additional financial backing to make the movie. Lewis Meyer of MGM told him, quote, because we have interest in Germany. I represent the filming picture industry here in Hollywood, we have exchanges there, we have terrific income from in Germany, and as far as I am concerned, this picture will never be made. See all that, Like Magawitz or Jeffy or Jeff could have had to say it was like, yeah, but they're doing fucked up ship and it seems seems

full full disclosure. From my opinion, it seems as though their attitude is, yeah, we know they are. We're also making more money there than we've ever made. Yeah, so exactly, Yeah, as you would hear it. Yea. But someone's gotta fucking pay the rent, buddy, dude. Ye Now. I think we've clearly seen some evidence of what would could be fairly called collaborations so far. But they is another wrinkle in this and another dynamic present in Hollywood at the time

that is important. Fear See. Hitler's rise to the chancellorship had correlated with a massive surge and anti Semitism and an anti Semitic violence in the United States. Twenty thousand Nazis marched in Madison Square Garden in the thirties, like there were camps all around the United States for American You do not hear about that. There were fascist rallies

all over the United States. In the Pacific Palisades, the Nazis bought a chunk of land to make a retreat in the early thirty What is it now, It's a graffiti sanctuary essentially, really yeah. Yeah, some of the old buildings are still there and it just gets tagged a bunch. It's a beautiful hike. Look up Hitler's house and it wasn't actually Hitler's house. It was supposed to be like a spa basically. But if you look up Hitler's house Pacific Palisades, you'll find out how to hike up there.

It's a beautiful hike. Really, yeah, yeah, there is. There was a lot of fascist sympathy and what is that about? Point would just anti semitism in America. Anti Semitism was everywhere. I mean, I mean here though, there were just so many people that like, yeah, we we think the Jews are the problem too. Yeah, and it was less I think people here were less hateful about us and they were in Europe, but it was very common. It was very common to view like the idea that Jewish people

controlled I mean, they did control the film industry. At this point, the idea, like to go back to your other episode about behind the Bachards of Hitler, the escapegoat became that the Jews were undermining the government's ability to come back to power, right, That's how it like initially started. So what was the feeling here that they just were

bad people. Know. It's the same idea that has persisted for a while that um so, you know, Jewish families are overrepresented in the finance industry and banking and have been for quite some time. And the reason for this is that for a very long time, both Muslims and Christians were prohibited, based on their religions, from running banks, from charge interest that was a religious like like it

was forbid. It's still forbidden for Muslims. I think for whatever reason, Catholics and Protestants have gotten over that ship in recent years. And for a long time pretty much the only people who could run a bank were Jewish people, and so they got a toe hold in that industry and that that has been a major factor, uh in

the rise of anti Semitism. It's it's not talked about a lot now like we tend to think of the Nazis is really stirring up anti I mean they did, but there was a lot of at present in Europe

in the United States. There are still churches all throughout Europe that have stained glass reliefs of which called a judent sow, which is a pig that's supposed to represent a Jewish woman nursing Jewish babies, like there's still representations of the Blood Passover, which is like this idea that Jewish rabbis kill Christian kids to make their Passover bread. Like those things are in You can go find churches today in Europe that still have stained glass reliefs of

that stuff. If you look at it, like, anti Semitism did not start with the Nazis. It was everywhere prior to World War Two. And so the studio heads in Hollywood were terrified of this, and we're very aware of it. And we're seeing fascist sympathy surging in the United States prior to World War two, and we're seeing anti Semitism surge in the United States prior to World War Two. So they were scared and they wanted Hollywood not to

stir things up and make it worse. That was a legitimate fear that if we make movies about Jewish people in any way, if we address the Nazi issue in any way, if we're seen as trying to change American opinion towards the Nazis, that will encourage more violence against Jewish people. So that is another factor here that is something all of these Jewish studio heads and production people

are very concerned about. Jewish people were very divided about what to do because there were a lot of Jewish speakers at this time who thought that Hollywood need to address like the issues that the Nazis raised. Rabbi Stephen Wise of the American Jewish Congress said this in ninety three, the time for caution and prudence's past. What is happening in Germany today may happen to morrow in any other land on Earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. It

is not the German Jews who are being attacked. It is the Jews. We must speak out. If that is unavailing, at least we shall have spoken. So this is not like none of these are uniform groups. There are a lot of Jewish people saying fucking Hollywood ought to do something, But there's also a lot of very scared people in Hollywood being like, maybe it's bad to do anything. Um. So that speaker just quoted with from the American Jewish Congress um who called for a total boycott on German

products in nineteen thirty. Now, the American Jewish Committee and the Benigh Breath protested this. They were more on the don't rock the boat side of things, and those Jewish advocacy groups were closer head closer ties to the film industry, so their feelings wound up having a larger impact on the policy of the major studios at the time. UM. From nineteen hundred to nineteen twenty nine, some two d and thirty movies had been made about Jewish people. There

would be significantly fewer released during the Nazi era. I think one of the things that's worth noting is that from ninety four or sixty three Hollywood movies had featured Jewish characters. Right in the next six years, from nineteen thirty four to nineteen forty, only twenty four films featured Jewish actors. So yeah, about two thirds is what this This drops by um, and we're going to get into

why right now. UM. See, in nineteen thirty four, a former Warner Brothers employee named Darryl z and Nuck got his hands on the script for a movie called The House of Rothschild. Since he wasn't Jewish himself and was the co founder of his own studio, Twentieth Century Pictures, he felt free to produce whatever the hell he wanted.

He saw this movie as a critique of anti Semitism and a carefully availed attack on Hitler, because it would be talking about how Jewish people have been persecuted a century or so ago in Europe, but it would clearly be he thought people, would you know, Yeah right? Um? So Yeah, though it was set in the fat past, the film addressed the present at one point. His main character even said quote, go into the Jewish quarter of any town in Prussia today and you'll see men lying dead,

but for one crime that they were Jews. So this is like a pretty direct attempt to address it. But there's a double irony in this movie. The first irony is that only a non Jew at this point in Hollywood could have gotten away with making a film that directly addressed anti Semitic violence. The second irony is that the fact that Zanuck was not Jewish meant that he didn't notice that his film attacking anti Semitism wound up

being anti Semitic as fuck. Real. Yeah, it was not intentionally so, um, But one of its central scenes involved a Jewish banker, the patriarch of the Rothschild family, bribing a tax collector and cheating the government out of his money. During a rant about the unfairness of anti Semitism. This banker shouted, quote, work and strive for money. Money is power. Money is the only weapon that the Jew has to defend himself with. So Zanuk's heart is in the right place. Yeah, Yeah,

he's not seeing it clearly. Yeah. The inciting incident of the movie is when the patriarch of the Rothschild family, on his deathbed, urges his five sons to create at five bank branches in different cities across Europe. He says, quote, your banking houses may cover Europe, but you will be one firm, one family, the Rothchilds, who always work together. That will be your power. And remember this before all, neither business, nor power, nor all the golden Europe will

bring you happiness. Till we are people have equality, respect, dignity, to trade with dignity, to live with dignity, to walk the world with dignity. So he's trying there's a good message in here. There's a good message in here, but it's couched in like a story about bankers who like a big part of the movie trying to comment and exactly and it focuses a lot on Nathan Roth's child wheeling and dealing with different European leaders in order to

fund the defeat of Napoleon. So some of this plot could very easily be anti Jewish propaganda, and many American Jews were horrified by the movie. Um, it also had a lot of people who loved it, and a lot of Jewish people in America thought it was a heroic movie, and it still has a reputation as like, whatever you will say about its las, at least he tried, right, like, you can't, you can't condemn it, when when other people

seemed to be deliberately not trying. Yeah, but this did scare a lot of Jewish people, particularly a lot of Jewish people in the film industry, and so as a result, throughout the nineteen thirties, Jewish actors started getting less and less work. It's debatable as to how much of that was out of a desire to please the Nazis and how much of it was due to the fears of Jewish political leaders. Whichever cause was more to blame, the

result is in dispute. Jewish people started disappearing from the silver screen long before the Germans disappeared them on Moss from Europe. We do know at least that the Nazis were fans of the House of Rothschild. In nineteen forty they were released The Eternal Jew, which is one of the violence propaganda films and all of history. That film included that scene from Zenox movie where the elder Rothschild

cheats the tax assessor. Like that whole scene was included in this Nazi propaganda film, but a German voiceover played during the scene, saying, here we show a scene from a film about the Rothschild family. It was made by American Jews, obviously, is a tribute to one of the greatest names in Jewish history. They honor their hero in a typically Jewish manner, delighting in the way old Meyer Mshell Rothschild cheats his host state by feigning poverty in

order to avoid paying taxes. So, yeah, it's tough. The guy tries to do the right thing and he accidentally makes Nazi propaganda like, so you gotta do a spin it, man. It's a mess, yeah right, yeah, yeah, are you are? No one's trying, and the person who's trying is making some mistakes and then also fueling the fire of the

people he's against. Which yeah, sucks. And not only are the people not trying, there seems to be some evidence, whether directed from the Nazi government or just to make their own money, that they're like, oh, yeah, we don't even want you make in movies that could infringe on Hollywood's profitability in Germany don't rock the boat or Nazi

Germany to be more specific. So we're going to get into the rest of this possible collaboration, uh, and we're also going to talk about the pro fascist movies that Americans made completely by accidents in this period of time. Yeah, it's a wacky story, Daniel. But this is where part one's gonna end, So the listeners gonna have to catch the rest of this on Thursday. Daniel. At the end of this episode, do you have any plug doubles to plug? Yes.

I would like to let people know I'm starting Daniel van Kirk The Together tour that will start on the eighteenth of September, and I'm going to be hitting up a whole bunch of cities. The first leg of it is Houston, Austin, Dallas, Lafia, and Baton Rouge. If you go to Daniel van Kirk dot com or my Twitter handle at Daniel van Kirk. You can find all that information there and I will also be doing a live Dumb People Town October twenty as part of the All

Things Comedy Festival in Phoenix. Well that's just grand. I'm Robert Evans. You can find me on Twitter at I right okay. You can find this podcast on the internet at behind the Bastards dot com, which is where all of the sources for today's podcast pea this. You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at at Bastard's pod. So check us out and I will see you all in like two days to talk more about Nazis in Hollywood. H