Liesl Frank, Charlotte Dieterle and the European Film Fund

Chapter Two
The European Film Fund: Its Foundation and Background

The Founding of the European Film Fund

The EFF was the brainchild of the agent Paul Kohner. Of Jewish ancestry, Paul was born in 1902 in Teplitz-Schonau, then part of Austria-Hungary. His father owned a printing plant and operated the town’s first movie theatre as a sideline. In 1921, after having joined his father’s business, Paul introduced himself to Universal Studio founder Carl Lammle - who was vacationing in neighbouring Karlsbad - which resulted in an offer that he join Universal’s New York offices. Following his stint in New York, Paul was moved to the West Coast, where he became a producer at Universal’s Los Angeles outfit. By 1932, Paul was the head of Universal’s European productions, and based in Berlin, where he and his wife, Lupita, witnessed Hitler’s rise to power. Lupita Kohner remembers attending the premiere of Der verlorene Sohn (The Prodigal Son, Deutsche Universal-Film AG, Germany 1933/ 34) along with her husband, who was the producer of the film, and noticing that Paul’s name had already been taken off the picture. Upon leaving the theatre, they witnessed ‘a gang of Nazi thugs physically attacking people’.¹ This incident gave them a fairly accurate idea of what life in Hitler’s Germany was going to be like, and not wanting to be part of it, they relocated to the US. Following their return to Los Angeles, Paul would eventually leave Universal and set up his own agency, turning it into the first port of call for many émigré actors, screenwriters and directors after their arrival in Los Angeles.

Although it is not known when Paul first had the idea for what would become the EFF, it is safe to assume that having witnessed the advent of Nazism, he had a clear understanding of Hitler‘s intentions. Additionally, being at home in both cultures, German as well as American, with a fluency in both languages, and well established roots in his adopted country, provided him with the necessary influence to initiate an organisation with the purpose of supporting Jews in their flight from Hitler at a time when the persecution of the Jews in Germany was still misapprehended by the international community.

While I will discuss US immigration and visa regulations effective between 1933 and 1941 in more detail in Chapter 5, it is important to illustrate the point above by briefly looking at the political situation in 1938, the year the EFF was founded.

The outcome of the Evian conference, where from July 6 to 14, 1938, official representatives from 32 countries and 24 refugee organisations, including HICEM and the World Jewish Congress, discussed the plight of Germany‘s Jews, left little doubt that the response of the international community to the persecution of Germany’s Jews was, at best, apathetic. Assessing the results of Evian, the Manchester Guardian commented:

The notice “Jews not wanted” may commonly be seen [......]

in Nazi Germany. One would not for that reason expect to find it displayed at an international conference on the subject of Jewish refugees, yet some of the speeches made at Evian [...

...] suggested that it might have been found in the pockets of several delegates (Dell 1938 :12).

This comment is echoed by Saul Friedländer who, assessing the Evian Conference, writes that, ‘no country, America not excepted, declared itself ready to accept unconditionally any number of Jews’ (Friedländer 1997: 249). The Evian conference was preceded by the annexation of Austria on March 12, 1938 which triggered ‘the first significant wave of refugees’ (Horak 1984: 22).² The refugee crisis worsened following the Munich Conference on September 29/ 30, 1938, the result of which was seen as an effort by France and Great Britain to appease Hitler. As for the US, their stance towards Hitler‘s Germany is appositely illustrated by the following letter addressed to Albert Einstein - then professor at Princeton University - by the US Assistant Secretary of State, George S. Messersmith, sent in reply to a joint telegram by Einstein himself and Thomas Mann:

The telegram of October 8, 1938, from yourself and Dr. Mann on the refugee situation in Czechoslovakia, has been received and carefully studied. I can assure you that we in the Department are following sympathetically the course of events in Central Europe, but I must add that in as much as the decisions of the Czechoslovak Government do not directly affect American interests or citizens we are not in a position to take any action in the matter.³

This indifference on the part of the international community must have had a strong impact on Kohner’s resolve to alleviate the deteriorating refugee crisis. However, it was not until the barbarities of Reichskristallnacht on November 9 had made headlines around the world that President Roosevelt publicly attacked Nazi Germany for the first time.⁴

By this time, of course, the EFF had already been founded and its incorporation was well under way. Besides, even though after the events of Reichskristallnacht the attitude of the international community - notably that of the US - towards Nazi Germany was beginning to toughen, little changed in terms of the strict quota regulations which allowed only a certain number of immigrants by country to enter the US legally. These regulations, operative in 1938, had originated in a revision of the US immigration laws dating back to 1924, when on the instigation of Captain John B. Trevor, they were revised and based on a national origins plan with the aim of keep the ’US population as close to the Anglo-Saxon model as possible’ (King 2000: 211). As a result, the quota for German immigrants - which naturally included Germany’s Jewish population - dropped from ‘61.227 to 23.428’ (King 2000: 209).⁵ However, it is widely known that even this lowered quota was not filled in 1938.⁶ On Roosevelt’s instigation, the US Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, recalled the American ambassador to Germany, Hugh R. Wilson, in response to the events of Reichskristallnacht.

On the question of the easing immigration laws, Peter Gay has observed that ‘[Roosevelt] announced that he would not ask for what he could not get.⁷ Public opinion was ill-informed, still strongly isolationist, only too indifferent to crises far away’ (Gay 1998: 145). Gay’s observation is underpinned by Palmier, who claims that, ‘the Roosevelt administration found itself stymied [by] public opinion [which] was hostile to Nazism but strongly anti-interventionist’ (Palmier 2006: 459). Even prior to Reichskristallnacht individuals and organisations nonetheless pleaded with the US government to toughen its stance towards Nazi Germany and to alleviate the plight of the German Jews. Dated 11^th August, 1938, the following letter was written jointly by William Weiner and Ephraim Schwartzmann of the Jewish Peoples Committee to Stanley Hornbeck, chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs at the State Department:

We are sending to you an appeal on behalf of our people who are being subjected to such persecutions by the Nazis the likes of which have not been known since the dark ages.

We ask you to let your voice be heard in unison with the voices of a thousand American leaders to whom we are also sending this appeal. We hope our request will receive your endorsement [,..].⁸ In a similar appeal, 450 Jewish craftsmen from Vienna turned to President Roosevelt in a telegram from 10^th October 1938:

[...] In the evening of 19^th of August this year the Israelite Community asked us via telegram to report to them immediately regarding emigration to Colombia. We were overjoyed [and] in view of the short notice, we have sold all our belongings for a song in order to raise money to buy things we may need in our new home. We used up all our money, the tickets for the passage were paid for by the [Israelite] Community [...] Now we have learned that the Colombia plan has been called off due to visa problems. Can you imagine what this means for us, Mr. President?

We no longer have any possessions, no longer any home, no prospective country that would have us, every illusion destroyed, no more resources or means of income, all we have to rely on is the small support given to us by the Community.

In our utmost desperation we summoned the courage to turn to you, Mr. President, asking you to help us obtaining visas for any country of the world, where we, as craftsmen, will be able to make an honest living to support us and our families.

We are willing and able to work and also pledge to [...] submit references that prove that we are certified craftsmen and that many of us have been working in their professions for decades.

The passages and entry payment would again be paid by the Community. Dear Mr. President, we urge you to help us, help us quick. We have set all our hopes on you - this great and humane man in the US - who has a heart for everybody and who, perhaps, can even relate to our fate [...].⁹

This plea gives evidence of Nazi chicanery, as well as the desperate situation the Jews found themselves in. It also testifies to the reputation for beneficence President Roosevelt enjoyed, particularly among the dispossessed and underprivileged, a reputation which in hindsight does not seem entirely justified. To quote Penkower, ‘the individual in whom the Jews placed their greatest trust also failed to seize the hour’ (Penkower 1983: 95).

The Vienna plea was of no avail. Nor did it help to amend the US stance towards refugees for, as Zucker has observed, ‘legally, as far as the United States was concerned, there were no refugees’ (Zucker 2001: 46). It is safe to assume that the plan for Jews to settle in Colombia was nothing more than a hoax conceived by the Nazis to allow them to take over the belongings of Vienna’s Jewish population as cheaply as possible. That there were never any plans for Jewish settlement in Colombia is abundantly illustrated in a memorandum by the State Department, dated 10^th July 1940:

There is no plan that I know of - and I am sure that I should know of any plan did it exist - to provide refuge for European Jews in Latin America. I might add that this government at no time “planned a scheme” for the settlement of refugees in Latin America [.. .].¹⁰

It was into this political climate that the EFF was born. At home in Germany, the Jews faced persecution and, potentially, extermination, yet Kohner was aware that politicians could not be relied upon to assuage their plight. He took matters into his own hands by creating the EFF, with the aim of helping refugees escape Nazi-occupied Europe, providing them with the necessary papers to be able to legally enter the United States, and ensuring their subsistence in a country that was not their own and whose language they had no command of.

As noted above, the exact origins of the EFF are not known. There are a variety of contradictory sources regarding an initial meeting among members of Hollywood’s émigré community.¹¹ These sources, if anything, exemplify the lack of information that still surrounds this organisation. Frederick Kohner claims that this first meeting took place at the house of Ernst Lubitsch (Kohner 1977: 109).¹² This assertion seems plausible since Paul Kohner would subsequently enlist Lubitsch as the president of the EFF. Not only was Lubitsch a personal friend of Paul’s, he was also regarded as the figurehead of the German émigré community and had more clout than most other émigrés.¹³ Inexplicably, however, the earliest surviving document relating to the EFF, a letter dated October 17, 1938, does not yet make any mention of Lubitsch. It was sent by the EFF initial board members - Charlotte Dieterle, Liesl Frank, Paul Kohner,

Bronislau Kaper, Rudolph Mate, Felix Jackson, and Heinz Herald, to the EFF’s lawyer, William o’ Connor, c/o Button & Mosher, 6331 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles:

The name of the proposed organisation is European Film Fund, a nonprofit organisation. The purpose is to collect money from all European film people here in Hollywood according to their means and distribute the money to European film people here in Hollywood, now in distress and who don’t earn a living [......] The money will be distributed to all Europeans now suffering under the race creed.¹⁴

Although composer Bronislau Kaper and cinematographer Rudolph Mate are stated as members of the board, little is known about their actual involvement in the EFF. By 1941 the EFF was operating from an office located from Paul Kohner’s Agency om 9172 Sunset Boulevard. Its board of directors consisted of:

The Name: A Result of Anti-Semitism?

A detailed study of the European Film Fund must include an examination of its name, which is curiously non-specific, evoking anything but an organisation with the purpose of financially supporting chiefly, although not exclusively, German-Jewish refugees. It is impossible to determine if the name was Kohner’s idea, but as early as 1976, John Baxter pointed to the ‘vague’ nature of the EFF’s generic title (Baxter 1976 : 292). Taking into consideration the EFF’s noble intentions, it is valid to ask why the organisation opted for the term European Film Fund, when, for instance, Relief Fundfor Jewish Refugees From Nazi Germany would have been more to the point. Furthermore, rather than stating that ‘the money will be distributed to all Europeans suffering under the Nazi persecution of the Jews’, the board used the clumsy expression ‘race creed’ in their initial letter to O’Connor (see above).

It seems likely that this vague terminology may indicate how anxious the members of the EFF were to avoid references to the refugee crisis as well as to Judaism. The reasons for this are complex and manifold. To a certain extent, they are related to the general political situation discussed above, which, however, is also linked to a latent US anti-Semitism which had forced many Jews into a clandestine existence as far as outward references to their denomination were concerned.

Although anti-Semitic incidents, sparked by the Church accusing the Jews of deicide, have been part of Jewish history ever since Christianity was declared Roman state religion by Theodosius I in 381 AD, the term anti-Semitism was first coined by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr in 1879.¹⁵ Marr used the word ‘in advertisements for [his] Anti-Semites’ League, [which was] the first attempt to use anti-Jewish feeling as the basis of a political party’ (Levy 1991: 74). Thus, as Raoul Hilberg has observed, ‘anti-Jewish policies and actions did not have their beginning in 1933’ (Hilberg 1985: 5). Anti-Semitism has been prevalent the world over, including in the United States. For instance, following ‘the post-Civil War period [...] antiSemitism [increased, and] in the 1860s, insurance companies refused to write fire insurance for Jews on the pretext that they were arsonists. [. ] Now came a time when the leading hotels of the country and exclusive Christian clubs refused to admit Jews’ (Grinstein 1980: 141). This prompted many US Jews to assimilate, shed their Jewish origins and to blend in with the masses;¹⁶ to become, in fact, one hundred percent American. In Germany, assimilation by Jews found its expression in a number of ways, the most obvious being conversion to Christianity in order to conform, escape stigma, gain professional rights, bolster social status, win a government or academic post, marry’ (Elon 2003: 82).^{17 18} Their complete assimilation into German society, and their identification with Germany and German culture, would, of course, have dire consequences for German Jews following the Nazi-takeover, for ‘they could not imagine any other place as ‘home’ (Kushner & Knox 1999: 138). In the US, however, assimilation was usually limited to Jewish communities making themselves invisible as Jews to the world at large. This - ‘soft’ - assimilation is an indicator that while anti-Semitism did exist in the US, it never assumed the proportions it did in Nazi Germany. However, as Richard Levy suggests, ‘although anti-Semitism ‘failed to penetrate established American political institutions, it helps explain the callous disregard of the United States for the destruction of European Jews during World War II’ (Levy 1991: 168).

The particular situation of Jews in Hollywood illustrates the prevalence of a latent antiSemitism. On the one hand, despite the general tendency towards assimilation, there are no known cases of conversions to Christianity among the Hollywood moguls; neither any of the four Warner brothers, nor Columbia’s Harry Cohn, nor MGM’s Louis B. Mayer, nor Universal’s Carl Laemmle, nor Paramount’s Adolph Zukor, nor Joseph and Nicholas Schenck converted.¹⁹ And yet, their situation was not entirely dissimilar to their German counterparts. Patricia Erens has observed that, ‘in certain ways, the Hollywood moguls revealed their Jewish roots implicitly, by the patriarchal style in which they ran their fiefdoms and by their close family loyalties. At the same time, these men had an overwhelming desire to prove themselves good Americans’ (Erens 1980: 115), and thus ‘[cut] their lives to the pattern of American respectability as they interpreted it’ (Gabler 1988: 4). To be truly American was equated with being gentile, hence the moguls ignored, if not hid, their Jewish origins as best they could. While prior to the studio era Jewish portrayals on film were relatively frequent, they gradually disappeared as the decade wore on.^{20 21 T}hese portrayals culminated, however, in the Jewish generational conflict films such as Warner Bros.’ The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1927), Columbia’s The Younger Generation (Columbia Pictures, USA 1929) and RKO’s Symphony of Six Million (RKO Radio Pictures, USA 1932) until, ‘Hitler’s rise to power and the Americanising moguls’ wish for invisibility had driven Jews from in front of the camera’ (Rogin 1998: 212, 213). Thus, although all but one of the moguls were Jewish,²² overt references to Judaism in the films produced by their studios became increasingly rare. Among the few exceptions were Disraeli (Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1929), and Twentieth Century’s The House of Rothschild (20^th Century Pictures, USA 1934).²³ MGM, by contrast, released no Jewish-themed films at all. The House of Rothschild would remain the last overtly Jewish-themed film to be produced by any Hollywood studio until 1944, when Warner Bros. and, particularly, Columbia were among the first studios to address the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Mr. Skeffington (Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1944), Address Unknown (Columbia Pictures, USA 1944) and None Shall Escape (Columbia Pictures, USA 1944). This hesitancy can partly be explained by the fact that the studios were anxious not to upset relations with Nazi Germany as ‘motion picture companies had large interests in Europe for distribution of their pictures’ (Gabler 1988: 342), which in turn explains ‘why the majors remained friendly with the Nazis for so long’, and why ‘as late as 1938 MGM maintained its Berlin offices with an Aryan staff, years after Hitler ordered such companies to fire their Jewish employees’ (Segrave 1997: 105).

Another reason is that ‘the caution exhibited by most studios in presenting anti-Nazi activities was endorsed by the State Department’ (Birdwell 1999: 21). This policy, however, was reversed after the US entered the war and the Hollywood studios were encouraged to support the war effort with their films. Nonetheless, Warner Bros. was the first studio to openly attack Nazi Germany in its Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1939).²⁴ To further antagonise Hitler, Warner Bros. released a series of biographical films that dealt with the lives of well-known European Jews such as Alfred Dreyfus (The Life Of Emile Zola, Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1937), Dr. Paul Ehrlich (Dr. Ehrlich’sMagic Bullet, Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1940) and Paul Julius Reuter (A Dispatch From Reuter’s, Warner Bros. Pictures, USA 1940). However, the references to the main characters’ Jewish roots in these films are extremely cursory. Eric J. Sandeen thus describes The Life Of Emile Zola as:

A widely praised film [which] skirted the fact that Dreyfus, whose case represented the inevitable climax of the film, was a Jew (Sandeen 1979: 72).

Zola's director, William Dieterle, remembered in his last interview that, ‘we could only use the word Jew three times and I think two of them were cut out’. Moreover, ‘the French banned that picture’ (Flinn 1975: 23). Thus, after the 1920s, which Patricia Erens calls the ‘the golden age for Jewish images’ (Erens 1980: 120), references to Judaism and Jewish-themed films, including those dealing with Nazi anti-Semitism, were rare in the US - indeed in world cinema - until well after 1945 (see: Sandeen 1979: 72). Ironically, it was Darryl F. Zanuck, the only gentile among the moguls, who produced Gentlemen’s Agreement (20^th Century Fox, USA 1947), dealing with the issue of anti-Semitism in the US. However, even though one would imagine that the newly revealed atrocities of the Holocaust had made anti-Semitism a particularly relevant topic to address, the reaction of Zanuck’s fellow studio heads makes plain that Jewish-themed films were considered taboo in a Hollywood where fears abounded that they might undermine the moguls’ gentile façade. According to George F. Custen, ‘Both Louis B. Mayer and Sam Goldwyn, called [Darryl F. Zanuck], advising him not to do [Gentlemen‘s Agreement], ‘Why rock the boat? Why bring up an unpleasant, controversial subject on the screen?’ (Custen 1997: 294).²⁵

Although the moguls’ aversion towards Jewish-themed films was born out of the desire to assimilate which, in turn, was the result of widespread, latent anti-Semitism in the US, it should be stressed that this anti-Semitism had little in common with its German counterpart, for while it was officially deemed un-American in the US, in Nazi Germany anti-Semitism was an integral part of Nazi ideology, expressing itself in state-sanctioned brutality against Jews. In the US, anti-Semitism manifested itself in a more subtle way, such as, for instance in ‘Jews being excluded from the best schools’ (Gabler 1998: 272) and the fact that as a policy ’the leading hotels of the country and exclusive Christian clubs refused to admit Jews’ (Grinstein 1980: 141). Mention must also be made of Henry Ford, who in 1919 acquired the newspaper Dearborn Independent, which by 1925 had a circulation of 900, 000, and used it to spread anti-Semitic propaganda. This included, for instance, rehashing the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which, ‘for several weeks running [...] came under detailed, wholly sympathetic scrutiny’ (Levy 1991: 167).²⁶ Furthermore, Ford claimed that, ‘Jews, at best, merely exploited what was essentially Christian’ (Carr 2001: 86).

Following the Nazi-takeover, anti-Semitism also intensified in the US. Hyman B. Grinstein has observed that ‘the rise of Hitler in Germany brought new anti-Semitic activities in the United States’ (Grinstein 1980: 144). A survey conducted in the US during WWII revealed that, ‘Americans distrusted Jews more than any European group with the sole exception of Italians’ (Gabler 1988: 345). Father Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest, capitalised on that mistrust when he used his own radio station to fulminate against the Jews, arguing after the outbreak of WWII that, ‘America should imitate Nazi Germany and remove all Jews from public service as a precaution against America‘s entry into the conflict’ (Birdwell 1999: 39). It is also important to mention in this context the role of the German-American Bund, an organisation that grew out of Friends of the New Germany. The Bund was one of several German heritage groups in the US, but was the only one to openly spread Nazi ideology. Although its membership is believed never to have exceeded 25,000, a rally of the Bund, held in New York’s Madison Square Garden, nevertheless attracted 20,000 people (see: Carr 2001: 111; Sandeen 1979: 78). Walter Wicclair writes in his autobiography that, ‘the German-American Bund congregated under Swastika flags, influenced local elections, organised SA and NS rallies and tried to convince America that the film industry was infested with Communists and Jews, posing a threat to homes, schools, churches, and so on’ (Wicclair 1975: 131).²⁷

While the activities of the Bund were often openly violent, they were at least not connected to any official government body which would have been ultimately more threatening, as was the case with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Much has been made of HUAC’s Communist witch-hunt, yet its primary intention, when founded in 1937 by Martin Dies, was to identify Nazi activities in the US. This, however, did not deter Dies from also being outspokenly anti-Semitic, as observed by Buhle and Wagner:

Martin Dies announced in 1939 that he had uncovered a Jewish plot to take over America by guiding a mercenary army up from Mexico, meanwhile manipulating Wall Street into collapse [...] (Buhle & Wagner 2002: 98).

In fact, the US right wing associated being Jewish with being Communist, and evidence shows that refugee organisations were closely watched by the government as their actions were deemed suspicious in terms of Communist infiltration. The following is an excerpt from the introduction to a report on more than fifty refugee organisations, commissioned by the US State Department, dated August 8, 1942:

Correspondence of a large percentage of those engaged in refugee work clearly reveals that their activities are in furtherance of, or allied with, the Communist and left wing Socialist cause.²⁸

What is surprising here is that no mention is made of the EFF. This would suggest that the careful selection of the organisation’s name did indeed enable it to drop off the radar screen of the government. Conversely, an organisation with a more specific name - Emergency Rescue Committee - which in 1940/41 closely collaborated with the EFF, came under scrutiny by the US government (see Chapter 5). As the number of refugees arriving in the US kept increasing, America’s right-wing press exploited the political and social climate by fulminating against the refugees, claiming that, ‘the refugees are robbing Americans of their jobs in the film industry [...]’ (Horak 1984: 23). This assertion is buttressed by Krispyn, who writes that a Gallup poll [ . ] found that 94 percent of the [American] people disapproved of the treatment of the Jews in Germany, but the non-committal nature of such expressions of popular sentiment became clear from an inquiry conducted by [ ... ] Fortune [ ... ] in April 1939.

On that occasion 83 percent of those interviewed were against the admission of more immigrants’ (Krispyn 1978: 106).

EFF members and particularly Kohner, who had been living in the US since 1921, were undoubtedly aware of the delicate political climate. Hence, they knew that not only was the inclusion of the word Jewish in the organisation’s title unlikely to rouse any empathy, but that they were well advised to draw as little attention to the actual purpose of the EFF as possible, for fear of a possible backlash.

The EFF’s generic name notwithstanding, isolated hostile responses did occur, although it is not clear to what extent they are related to the EFF directly. Asper writes that ‘[Walter] Wicclair reports of anti-Semitic graffiti against Lubitsch on the county hall of Los Angeles’ (Asper 2002: 241). This small example suggests that opting for the vague term European Film Fund may have been a conscious decision on the part of the EFF board members, which not only shielded the organisation from potential repercussions on the part of the press and the public at large, but also allowed it to escape the attention of the government and to operate with maximum independence.