Published: 12 July 2018
Last updated: 5 March 2024
THE MAGAZINE Open Culture has published an article praising the Warner Brothers loud dissent against Nazis and censors in the 1930s by producing such films as Confessions of a Nazi Spy and the Hitler-lampooning cartoon, Bosko’s Picture Show.
The Warners, children of Polish immigrants, were certainly outspoken among the cadre of Jewish studio heads at the time, but they weren’t the only ones who resisted.
The Los Angeles of the 1930s, as is colourfully recounted in Steven Ross’s 2017 book, Hitler in Los Angeles was teeming with Nazi activity. Goebbels knew Hollywood’s importance in the war to win American hearts and minds and delay their involvement in a real war to come.
The efforts of the Reich’s emissaries in the town were felt strongly in screening rooms. The Nazi Consul to Los Angeles, Georg Gyssling, was charged with giving final approval for any film that featured the fatherland and was aided by a sympathetic head of the Production Code Association, Joseph Breen.
Without their imprimatur, the studios’ films would be embargoed for the large German market. This policy effectively kneecapped the Jewish moguls, who had to answer to their investors — but that didn’t mean they failed at other forms of response.
As Ross’s book recounts, the Nazi threat to Los Angeles involved more than films. Plans were made to assassinate Louis B. Mayer, to explode munitions factories and even, through some affiliated groups, to launch a coup from the Hollywood Hills.
FULL STORY How Jewish movie moguls quietly helped to fight the Nazis (Forward)
