The Brothers Warner Page #6

of the First World War had been waged.

And he took us down in the trenches

and told us the stories, you know...

...of the people in trenches

being 25 feet apart...

...and shooting at each other all day...

...and then at night, exchanging cigarettes

and talking to each other.

I mean, that kind of

anti-war premise was spoken.

You know, war was stupid

and hell and unnecessary.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler

became chancellor of Germany.

One of his first acts was to order

a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses.

Harry is convinced that

he cannot do business With Germany...

...as long as Hitler is in power.

This is the first studio in Hollywood to stop

doing business with Nazi Germany...

...and other people thought he was crazy.

People, you know--

Louis B. Mayer says:

"We can't live without

the German box office."

I didn't realize how

lucrative a market Germany was...

...and Europe was in the 1930s...

...but I found out that about half the gross

was made outside of the United States.

So it was a very big deal...

...for someone to actually pull out

of Germany in 1 934...

...years before any of the other studios

decided to pull out.

So I think that's putting your money

where your mouth is.

Ultimately, to make some socially

responsible decisions...

...you must be willing to give up

some level of profit...

...some level of squeezing

every last nickel out.

It's not just the Hollywood industry

that is selling its product overseas...

...but Americans across the board

are doing business with Nazi Germany.

You know, the International

Business Machine, for example, IBM.

Working With Nazi Germany.

In fact, they develop the device to catalog

the folks who will go to the prison camps.

Warner Bros. wanted to make a film

called Concentration Camp.

This was based on reporting that had been

coming in about the concentration camps.

Dachau opened in March of 1933.

I mean, people forget

that the camps started that early.

Harry Warner ordered folks in the studio

to start collecting stories.

You know,

start going through newspapers.

They're going to focus

on the horrors of the camps.

I mean, they can't be as graphic

as they could be today...

...but about people losing their

civil liberties, being rounded up...

...you know,

put into these camps for forced labor.

So the Production Code says,

"No, you can't do that."

They say,

"If you try to go through with this film...

...We'll contact the State Department."

It's a funny thing to me

that if Warner Bros. knows...

...there's concentration camps

in the mid-'30s, then other people know.

And so it was a real attempt

at making a very hard-hitting film...

...that they didn't get to make.

The Production Code Authority was

putting a lot of pressure on Warner Bros.--

Warner Bros. was pushing the envelope

more than the other studios were.

--not to offend foreign governments,

not to offend pressure and interest groups.

Blocked by the Production Code...

...Grandpa found other ways

to convey messages throughout the '30s.

Porfirio...

...What does it mean, this Word?

Democracy?

Why, it means liberty.

Liberty for a man to say what he thinks,

to worship as he believes.

It means equal opportunity.

There was also a strong

virulent element of anti-Semitism.

There were a number of posters

and pamphlets and--

That were leafleted around that

were saying these were Jewish studios...

...and how dare they speak up

as a minority...

...when in fact that was, again,

one of these American values...

...and American principles

that Warner Bros. knew so well.

Harry Warner himself took the word "Jew"

out of The Life of Emile Zola.

It was not there in the dialogue.

He said it should not be there

in the dialogue.

It's there. It's Written.

At one point, somebody points to the list

of the members of the general staff...

...and it says, "Dreyfus. Religion: Jew."

He says, "How did this person

ever get on the general staff there?"

So it's clear what's going on.

But it's not there in the dialogue.

Now, he's been criticized.

The film has been criticized for this.

It wasn't up front enough. It didn't say it.

To me,

I think it's a different kind of thing.

Because, in fact,

by taking out the explicitness in that way...

...it makes the idea of prejudice

a lot more general.

You will not say, like many,

"What does it matter...

...if an innocent man is undergoing

torture on Devil's Island?"

Is the suffering of one obscure person

worth the disturbance of a great country?

Not only is an innocent man

crying out for justice...

...but more, much more.

A great nation is in desperate danger

of forfeiting her honor.

You had an industry that was run

by Jews, censored by Catholics...

...and an audience of Protestants.

So only in America.

I thank God each night...

...that such an organization as

the American Legion exists in our country.

The American Legion has become

the watchdog of democracy...

...the guardian of equal rights for all...

...a warning to destructive interests

the world over...

...that Americans will stand alone

if necessary...

...in support of true

democratic government...

...and against the hates and prejudices

of a world gone mad.

Confessions of a Nazi Spy.

The most defiant motion picture

ever made.

Confessions of a Nazi Spy is the film

Harry had been looking for...

...where they could actually

use the word Nazi in a film...

...and let people know

what Hitler's up to.

We are proud of our new Germany.

Confessions of a Nazi Spy was

definitely a milestone in American cinema.

It's the first American movie

that is an explicitly anti-Nazi film.

They were writing it in 1 938,

shooting in the beginning of 1939...

...and it premiered in April 1939.

Until then,

the Production Code Administration...

...had consistently turned down

every project that had to do with Nazis.

They would not let the studios

make anything attacking Hitler.

- was this your first trip to Germany?

- No, I was born in Germany.

- Really, Where?

- In Runaborg. Do you know it?

Yes, we always get our Christmas candles

from there.

They smell so good.

Yes, they smell of honey and heather.

Heather almost as far as the eye could see.

- And you found it changed?

- Changed?

- The sheep are gone now.

- Why?

There's a Hitler storm-troop barrack

in the middle of the heather.

My old pasture

is in a concentration camp.

My friends talk in Whispers,

When they talk at all.

You have family left in Runaborg?

Yes, my brother, and some relatives

and their children.

Oh, I wish that--

You believe in that system?

I believe in the purposes and destiny

of the Third Reich...

...and our Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.

What happened in February 1 938...

...the FBI uncovered a Nazi spy ring

operating in the United States...

...and they brought them to trial

in early October in New York.

And the Warner Bros. realized

that this was their opportunity...

...to come in

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