ARTE Distribution

In the decade leading up to the Second World War, Hollywood studio bosses, who were all Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, preferred to collaborate with Nazi Germany, despite their knowledge of the treatment that was inflicted on Jewish people. Why did they agree to continue working with the Nazis while Europe was being invaded?

In 2023, All Quiet on the Western Front became one of the biggest hits of 2023 with 9 Academy and won in four categories including the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Very few people know that this film is actually a remake of the 1930 Lewis Milestone film. And even fewer know that behind it lies an unthinkable and almost unknown part of history. That of the collaboration between Hollywood and the Nazis in the 1930s. The Nazis refused to distribute the film as shot, deeming it too anti-German and anti-militarist, and imposing various cuts and changes. This was the beginning of a long series of compromises on the part of the American studios. For almost a decade, before the beginning of World War I, Hitler dictated his pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish rules to Hollywood studios, who complied because they were too afraid, that otherwise, they couldn't continue to do business with Germany, which they needed for the distribution of their films. Hollywood studio bosses chose to collaborate with the Nazis, who were invading Europe, although they knew all about what they were doing to Jewish people, and even though most of the studio bosses were of Jewish descent. They all agreed to collaborate. Why did Hollywood acquiesce to Nazi censorship? Was the only motivation for this collaboration purely commercial? How did the American Jewish community react at the time?