Review: Urwand, Ben. The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. 336 pages.
Reviewed by Caitlin Luetger
Much of the controversy surrounding The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler has regarded the validity
of sources used by author Ben Urwand. Through his research, Urwand claims he was able to uncover a hidden
pact between major Hollywood studios and Adolph Hitler during the rise of the Nazi regime. The story presented
in The Collaboration, which explicitly states that studio heads actively worked with German officials to edit films
that negatively portrayed the German nation, is alarming. Urwand claims that, despite maintaining deep ties to the
Jewish community and their anti-fascist politics, filmmakers were primarily concerned with losing German business,
and as a result the “collaboration” of the book’s title was born. As a result of his claims, numerous academic and
public figures have criticized Urwand’s research, accusing him of stretching conclusions and misusing sources,
and have questioned the sanity and standards held by Harvard University Press for publishing such a book. Given
the criticism of the validity of Urwand’s argument and sources, readers should explore The Collaboration with a
critical eye.
The Collaboration is six chapters long in addition to a prologue, epilogue, notes, acknowledgments, and index.
Urwand’s storytelling is thorough, leaving no detail to the imagination. While the prologue serves as a vehicle
for describing his influences and outlining his major point, he fails to include a breakdown of how the book is
organized. While the titles of the first two chapters are self-explanatory (“Hitler’s Obsession with Film” and “Enter
Hollywood,” respectively), the remaining chapters cite terminology related to Hitler’s viewing habits, leaving the
reader without much help in navigating the book. The addition of an outline and explanation of chapter titles
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would be beneficial for those reading the book sparingly or out of order, although the structure of the book forces
the reader to look at each chapter in chronological order, allowing the story to unfold like a film or novel.
The first chapter illustrates film’s influence on Hitler’s early political career by chronicling both Hitler’s
rise to power and his evening agenda, which included watching a movie before bed every night. To highlight the
importance of Hitler’s impact on film throughout the Second World War, Urwand goes into great detail on the
creation and initial screening of the film All Quiet on the Western Front, crediting a Nazi riot against the film as the
first instance of an alliance between film studios and the German government (9). Urwand describes All Quiet on the
Western Front as a film version of Hitler’s chapter in Mein Kampf on the spoken word. Still, despite some similarities,
the film overwhelmingly condemns the power of oratory and contradicts Hitler’s version of WWI. From a historical
perspective, after an initial showing in German, the film was declared offensive to the German people. German
officials demanded that Universal Pictures censor and delete a number of scenes before continuing German
showings, to which the executives at Universal obliged. Urwand argues that All Quiet on the Western Front was the
catalyst for a decade long collaborative effort between US filmmakers and Hitler.
Urwand’s second chapter, entitled “Enter Hollywood,” continues to set up the premise for the NaziHollywood collaboration from the other side of the ocean, focusing on the film studios and their desire to continue
doing business in German theaters. Urwand contrasts Hollywood’s revision of All Quiet on the Western Front to a
showing of the film Hell’s Angels, which received a similarly negative review upon screening in Europe. “Enter
Hollywood” further explores a motive for collaboration through an in-depth look at increasing restrictions put forth
by the German government on imported films. The biggest difficulty filmmakers faced was a law stating that film
permits would be revoked if the government deemed that film to be “detrimental to German prestige” (48). These
laws, Urwand argues, monumentally influenced Hollywood’s decision to work with the German government.
The third chapter, “Good,” which gets its name from Hitler’s categorization of the films he enjoyed, moves
away from setting up a case for collaboration and focuses instead on US films that were generally well received
by the Nazi party. These films tended to promote a nationalist, socialist, or fascist view and could easily be seen
as propaganda. Likewise, this chapter discusses German made propaganda films and shortcomings German
filmmakers faced in comparison to well equipped and funded American studios.
Following “Good,” comes Urwand’s fourth chapter, “Bad,” which predictably covers those films that were
disliked by Hitler and the Nazi party. By 1934, German laws surrounding film had evolved to include bans on any
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films that could be considered offensive to religious views and artistic sensibilities, or overall detrimental to the
German people or nation (129). The chapter begins with a look at the banning of films, such as Tarzan the Ape Man,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Scarface, and The Prizefighter and the Lady, the last of which was subject to censorship due to
its Jewish cast. This chapter stresses the helplessness of American filmmakers within the collaborative effort and
further emphasizes the power held by the Nazi government through censorship practices. Urwand argues that,
in addition to controlling what American films would be shown in Germany, the Nazis’ strict censorship policies
played a direct role in what films got the green light for production in America because studio heads were far more
concerned with strengthening their foreign markets than creative freedom.
The fifth chapter, “Switched Off,” which gets its title from Hitler’s classification for films Hitler he refused
to watch all the way through, begins with an account of journalist Dorothy Thompson’s insulting interview with
Hitler prior to his appointment as Chancellor of Germany in which she publicly denounces his ability as a political
leader. This chapter focuses on the trials and tribulations of producing the film It Can’t Happen Here, based on a
novel of the same title. The story of It Can’t Happen Here satirizes Hitler’s regime by placing a fictional tyrant in the
role of commander-in-chief of the United States. Urwand argues that, had this film been produced, it would have
been the first anti-fascist film from the United States, and it would therefore have been the first step at ending the
collaboration between filmmakers and the German government. Studio heads at MGM Films publicly stated that
the film had been scrapped by a panel of executives who found the film to “not politically propitious” in light of
protests (200).
The sixth and final chapter, “Switched On,” takes the reader to the start of WWII and examines an
attitudinal shift in Hollywood. After describing the 1939 German press ban on certain films, Urwand continues to
describe instances of American studios developing anti-Nazi films. A great deal of this chapter is devoted to Warner
Brothers’ development of Confessions of a Nazi Spy, which, although it would ultimately prove to be a flop, would
set the stage for more studios to take on anti-Nazi projects. As Hitler began to invade European nations, American
studios saw a decline in revenue, which Urwand argues was a catalyst for the deterioration of the collaboration
between Hitler and Hollywood.
Urwand’s ability to tell an engaging story is impressive, and he manages to weave his histories together to
build a solid foundation for his primary argument that, during the 1930s, Hollywood Studio filmmakers actively
worked with German censors in order to increase profit. The Collaboration would be suitable both for film enthusiasts
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and for those interested in WWII, although the book’s primary focus lies in the politics of film production and
foreign markets, making it a desirable read for social and cultural historians, as well as broad audiences. Despite
the controversy surrounding Urwand’s thesis and sources, he has created an interesting tale for niche and broad
audiences alike.
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