Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany (8 page)
Read Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany Online
Authors: Richard Lucas
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Bisac Code 1: BIO022000, #Biography, #History
Claire Trask “knew all the film stars in Germany, and the managers and the directors,” she recalled, “and so I began doing a great deal of translating for UFA—doing subtitles for films, and that sort of thing.”
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In essence, Mildred picked up much of the translation work that Hooper Trask had performed before his tragic death. UFA did not fully come under the regime’s total control until March 19, 1937 when Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment assumed responsibilty for every aspect of the studio’s output. Mildred’s work for UFA would serve as an introduction to working for a propaganda organ of the German government.
Critic or Propagandist?
While living with Claire Trask from 1935 to 1938, Mildred became fluent in the German language, studied interpretive dance, and assisted Mrs. Trask in her job as the
New York Times’
Berlin correspondent. It was a time of growth, opportunity and achievement that towered over anything she had experienced in her own country. Mildred remembered:
I did quite a lot of writing… by myself and in conjunction with Mrs. Trask; well, of course, naturally, I never worked on any of her articles—either I did the article or I didn’t—but you see, I was responsible for getting the work because I had no friends in Germany and she had good connections with UFA.
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Claire Trask walked a fine line as a reviewer of German film and theater in the
Times
. Critical of the political and racially motivated changes that came to the Berlin drama scene with the January 30 revolution, a review of her prodigious output from 1934 to 1938 reveals the progressively heavy hand of the Propaganda Ministry weighing on her ability to write genuine film and theater criticism. Mrs. Trask noted in a December 1934 article that Germany’s film industry was in crisis due to the Nazi state’s withdrawal of two films from exhibition in the city’s theaters. She described the “benign” influence of the Propaganda Minister:
It has long been evident that Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Education and Propaganda, is keeping a benign official eye on the celluloid strip.… Dr. Joseph Goebbels himself… personally stopped the run of the two films. He expressly states that the barring of these two pictures is not due to their running counter to state policy or National Socialistic beliefs but because they are “superficial, tasteless, void of any imagination, misusing their cast, musicians, etc. to turn out dull, stupid film ware.”… This controversy had added little to stabilize an already restless, unsure and much hampered industry.
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Mrs. Trask tempered her criticism with evenhanded praise for the latest offerings of the major German studios such as UFA and Tobis, and reported on the popularity of American films in Berlin’s movie houses. Light Hollywood fare such as
Dancing Lady
starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable,
Morning Glory
with Katherine Hepburn, and the historical drama
Queen Christina,
starring the immensely popular Greta Garbo, filled the capital’s theaters with dubbed German versions.
Clara Trask was even more forceful in describing the plight of the Jewish theater in the new Germany. The
Times
ran two separate Trask-authored columns on the same day—April 8, 1934. The first was an account of the current movie offerings on exhibition in Berlin, pointing out that the British film
Catherine the Great
was pulled from exhibition after only one day because one of it stars, Elisabeth Bergner, was a Jew who had emigrated after the Nazi takeover. The companion article described the achievements of a small Jewish playhouse working in the face of Nazi persecution. Describing the traditional artistry of the Yiddish theater, Trask did not openly criticize government policy but instead revealed telling facts about the conditions under which the theater company performed. She pointedly informed her readers that “non-Jews are not admitted” to the productions presented by the Cultural Association of German Jews (
Kulturbund Deutsche Juden
) at the old Berliner Theater. “It was by an especially stipulated permission obtained from Herr (Hans) Hinkel, Commissary of State at the Prussian Ministry of Science, Art and Education that I was able to attend,” she noted.
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Mildred’s journalistic mentor was less outspoken in her criticism of government meddling in the German film industry after 1934, focusing instead on events such as the farewell appearance of the provincial actress Emmy Sonnemann, the new wife of Reich minister Hermann Goering, telling her readers that Frau Goering was “smothered in flowers and ovations.”
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In the Olympic year of 1936, the Nazi state was eager to showcase itself to the international community as an orderly, happy society brimming with confidence and prosperity. Mildred attended the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games. Subject to a steady diet of Nazi propaganda for over two and a half years and always highly impressionable, her views on “the Jewish Question” went through a change at this time as well. She remembered that happy period in her life in a 1943 broadcast:
I was up there at the Olympic Stadium, a beautiful bronze, athletic figure running across the field threw the torch into the oil and this marvelous flame flew up into the air. And then the Olympic clock was started with this wonderful call: “I’m calling the youth of the world.”… In 1936, the hands of youth from all the four corners of the world were extended and met here in Germany.… The Germans and the Americans were the best sportsmen in the whole world—got more prizes than anybody else if I’m not mistaken. And at the end of each feat, the victor was crowned by a pretty young German girl with a wreath of laurels.
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It became clear to her who was responsible for ending those halcyon days:
And then, all of a sudden, 1939 was there. 1939–1940–1941– 1942–1943 and war drums in America. American youth—donning their uniforms to come over to Germany and to fight those people to whom they had given the hand of friendship in 1936. And I realized just how effective had been this Jewish pestilence which has broken out over the face of the earth, because in 1936, the hands of youth from all the four corners of the world were extended and met here in Germany. They understood each other. They understood that the power and ability to keep peace once and for all belonged to us, belonged to the youth. But the Jews didn’t want it that way.
The fault all lies with the Jewish influence in the world today and that this murder which is being committed is not only a physical murder, but a murder of this understanding—a murder of this friendship—which in 1936 really was there.
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After the close of the Olympics, Claire Trask discussed the theatrical fare offered during the festivities and the immense popularity of the American film
Broadway Melody of 1936
in the face of what she dryly described as “dense as woods German product.”
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Her criticism was tempered with support for the best of Goebbels’ stable of stars—taking pains not to be unduly negative toward performers who were personal favorites of the Minister. The Minister was a notorious pursuer of sexual liaisons with actresses who could benefit from his favor. His two-year relationship with the Czech beauty Lida Baarova threatened his political career when Magda Goebbels discovered the affair and barred him entry to their Wannsee home. In the end, Hitler himself ordered Goebbels to end the relationship. Baarova was forced to leave Germany and later resumed her acting career in Prague.
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Redefining Film Criticism
By late 1936, it was evident that the inferior product produced by a strictly regulated film industry utterly failed to capture the imagination of theatergoers. The studios were decimated by a massive loss of talent as Jewish writers, directors and technicians fled Germany. Even before the party’s takeover of the studios in 1937, Goebbels had the power to stop a film from being made, controlled the approval of scripts through the office of
Reichsdramaturg
, could grant tax exemptions, and could determine whether or not the finished film would be exhibited in Germany’s 5,000-plus theaters.
Reacting to the overwhelming public rejection of his approved films in November 1936, Goebbels issued a decree forbidding art criticism of any kind that did not meet the requirements set by the Reich Chamber of Culture.”
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Angered by the public’s lack of interest in the films produced under the auspices of his ministry, he blamed the critics. “To demonstrate the unhalting victory march of our cultural life,” the Minister announced, “I have by decree forbidden all criticism and replaced it with
art observation
or
art description
.”
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(Author’s italics.) Thereafter, all critics of German film and art were forced to obtain a license from the Propaganda Ministry. Although many professional critics of repute had already gone into exile, it signaled the end of independent art, theater and film criticism in Germany.
The light and breezy tone of Claire Trask’s critiques became even more solemn in the following months. As Goebbels and his minions drove the studios into the ground with their meddling, the Nazi Party took advantage of their financial weakness. The party moved in to purchase a controlling interest in all German film studios. UFA was the first to fall under state ownership in March 1937 when the party secretly purchased 72 percent of the company’s stock, followed by a takeover of Tobis and the closing of the Bavaria studios. The emigration of the vast majority of the German film industry’s Jewish and half-Jewish actors, directors and technicians to the USA and other European nations enabled lesser talents to take their place. Claire Trask’s attempt to review the UFA film
Togger
reveals the difficulty that she experienced in finding a way to praise a work she obviously found wanting:
Scrutinizing closely the picture reveals gaps, halts, inconsistencies, that strain the imagination of the viewer. Besides, it is manifestly a picture of stark propagandistic flavor. But strangely enough, just like this year’s UFA film
Verraster
(Traitors) to which it is congenial in Nazi doctrinary persuasions,
Togger
proves in part a tense bit of entertainment… The staged burning of a complete building was a fizzle both from the directing and photographic angle. Newsreels would have supplied much more effective material. For once we might have been spared the derogatory nightlife scene of the “debauched” period before the coming of the Third Reich. Yet in spite of its many shortcomings the picture is one of the best the Fatherland has turned out this season.
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Limited in what she could report to the
Times
readership, Trask’s communiqués became much less frequent during the troubled years of 1937–38. With the regime openly using critics as propaganda tools, and the New York newspaper reader less inclined to care about the Berlin film scene, Claire Trask’s output for the
Times
steadily deteriorated. Luckily, she had another outlet that kept her and her eager protégée working through 1937–38.
Mildred volunteered her services to Trask to write film and theater reviews for
Variety
, the American entertainment trade newspaper. Apolitical in nature and overwhelmingly concerned with business prospects in radio, film and legitimate theater, the daily newspaper was interested in upcoming foreign films that would eventually be shown on New York screens. Correspondents from London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Budapest dispatched news articles and film, theater and cabaret reviews describing the latest European offerings. Writing without a byline and datelined Berlin, Mildred reviewed several major films, including 1937’s
La Habanera
, the last German film of director Detlef Sierck. Sierck’s second marriage to a Jewish actress compelled the talented director to flee to Italy in 1937. Like Billy Wilder and Fritz Lang, he eventually went to the United States where he changed his name to Douglas Sirk and directed several classic films for Universal including
Magnificent Obsession
(1954) and
All That Heaven Allows
(1955).
While Claire Trask’s prose displayed the restrained elegance of the cultured connoisseur, Mildred’s reviews imitated the staccato pulse and lowbrow aim of the gossip column. Brimming with Hollywood slang, the reviews were short in length, punchy in delivery, grammatically clumsy and, at times, incomprehensible. It is hard to imagine that her film reviews would have been published in any newspaper without the intervention of her friend and mentor Trask. Unlike her anti-Nazi patron’s urbane and thoughtful assessments, Mildred’s pieces were effusive in their praise. Compared with
Variety’
s New York-based reviews of German film at the time, Mildred’s “criticism” could only be described as fawning. Reviewing the 1938 film
Gasparone
, Mildred takes on all doubters of one of the regime’s favored actresses, Hungarian Marika Rökk:
