{"id":16272,"date":"2013-08-05T05:30:17","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T09:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=16272"},"modified":"2013-08-04T18:05:33","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T22:05:33","slug":"hollywoods-collaboration-with-the-nazis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2013\/08\/hollywoods-collaboration-with-the-nazis\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood’s collaboration with the Nazis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> has published excerpts from a new book <\/a>documenting the ways that the American film industry collaborated with the Nazis in order to keep selling tickets in Germany.\u00a0 From the introduction to the excerpt, linked after the jump:<\/p>\n

In devastating detail, an excerpt from a controversial new book reveals how the big studios, desperate to protect German business, let Nazis censor scripts, remove credits from Jews, get movies stopped and even force one MGM executive to divorce his Jewish wife. . . .<\/p>\n

The 1930s are celebrated as one of Hollywood\u2019s golden ages, but in an exclusive excerpt from his controversial new book, The Collaboration: Hollywood\u2019s Pact with Hitler<\/a> (Harvard University Press, on sale Sept. 9), Harvard post-doctoral fellow Ben Urwand uncovers a darker side to Hollywood\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

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Drawing on a wealth of archival documents in the U.S. and Germany, he reveals the shocking extent to which Hollywood cooperated and collaborated with the Nazis during the decade leading up to World War II to protect its business.<\/p>\n

Indeed, \u201ccollaboration\u201d (and its German translation, Zusammenarbeit) is a word that appears regularly in the correspondence between studio officials and the Nazis. Although the word is fraught with meaning to modern ears, its everyday use at the time underscored the eagerness of both sides to smooth away their differences to preserve commerce.<\/p>\n

The Nazis threatened to exclude American movies \u2014 more than 250 played in Germany after Hitler took power in 1933 \u2014 unless the studios cooperated. Before World War I, the German market had been the world\u2019s second largest, and even though it had shrunk during the Great Depression, the studios believed it would bounce back and worried that if they left, they would never be able to return.<\/p>\n

Beginning with wholesale changes made to Universal\u2019s 1930 release All Quiet on the Western Front<\/em>, Hollywood regularly ran scripts and finished movies by German officials for approval. When they objected to scenes or dialogue they thought made Germany look bad, criticized the Nazis or dwelled on the mistreatment of Jews, the studios would accommodate them \u2014 and make cuts in the American versions as well as those shown elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n

It was not only scenes: Nazi pressure managed to kill whole projects critical of the rise of Adolf Hitler. Indeed, Hollywood would not make an important anti-Nazi film until 1940. Hitler was obsessed with the propaganda power of film, and the Nazis actively promoted American movies like 1937\u2019s Captains Courageous that they thought showcased Aryan values.<\/p>\n

Historians have long known about American companies such as IBM and General Motors that did business in Germany into the late 1930s, but the cultural power of movies \u2014 their ability to shape what people think \u2014 makes Hollywood\u2019s cooperation with the Nazis a particularly important and chilling moment in history.<\/p>\n

Keep reading for the excerpt at How Hollywood Helped Hitler (Exclusive)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n