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.99
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.”100 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.101
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.102
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.”103 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.104
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.”105 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.”106 (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.107
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 re
viewed 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:
If there were any doubts about Marika Rökk, she’s put the kibosh on them here, showing that in every department she is stocked with the goods that send folks places where they can do things. As terper, chirper and comedienne, she has finish as she has never shown before.… Sleuthing, smuggling, intrigue, chorines with shapely gambs and a double-headed interest—these are the ingredients—and the dish has been prepared to the king’s taste.108
A careful review of these anonymous dispatches from Berlin makes the reader wonder if Mildred’s film criticism was not “prepared to the king’s taste” as well. The Propaganda Minister, with input from Hitler, handpicked those actors and actresses who exemplified the “Aryan” ideal of man and womanhood. Stars like Kristina Sönderbaum, Zarah Leander, Brigitte Horney, Sybille Schmitz and Marika Rökk were placed in the forefront in order to replace great stars such as Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich. Mildred left no doubt about her understanding of the critic’s role: “trying to give American producers an idea of the kind of material, human material particularly, that was available in Germany.”109 Comfortable with the fact that her role was to promote rather than critique, she was unconcerned or unaware that her role had a political component.
Her breathless review of Der Gelse Flagge (The Yellow Flag) is another indication of her early propensity for promoting the interest of the German film industry and its masters in the Propaganda Ministry:
Of all the weird, outlandish concoctions this one takes the blue ribboned pork chops. Based on a Fred Andreas story that got a big reading public via its serial appearance, nothing has been left out in terms of thrills and adventure. As for the masses that are nertz about their [actor Hans] Albers, they’ve sure got him here, plus variations. Not only does he K.O. a half dozen toughies and prove what a Beau Brummell he is with the ladies, but combats single-handed a whole raft of cannibals in the heart of the jungle. It’s a sure wicket spinner in nabe sector, nabe lands, and the sticks.110
She sang the praises of the politically sensitive German-Italian co-production Mutterlied (Mother Song):
Not a trick has been passed up to make it one of the niftiest turnstile takers within the Hitler–Mussolini confines, plus plenty possibilities beyond these realms.111
Because Mrs. Trask refused payment for room and board, Mildred worked for Variety without a byline and accepted whatever money Trask offered for her efforts. She claimed that she never knew how much money Claire Trask was being paid by the newspaper. Mildred became so busy that she stopped working for the Berlitz School in 1938 to devote all her time to writing. With the March 1938 Anschluss of Austria into the Reich, Variety’s editors became increasingly sensitive about publishing anything that could be construed as Nazi propaganda. Almost overnight, the entertainment industry became skittish about accepting content from Berlin. In Canada, a huge outcry erupted over CBC Radio’s announcement that it would accept cultural programming from Germany in May 1938.112 In the United States, NBC’s shortwave division fired its newscaster and announcer Ernest Kotz due to charges that he was pro-Nazi. American and Canadian outlets were on guard to ensure that they would not be duped. From March 1938 on, Variety’s communiqués from Berlin carried only the name of Claire Trask. Mildred’s cheerleading for Nazi film came to an end.
Most likely, Mildred’s fevered movie reviews were rewritten with the more sober prose of Claire Trask and published under her byline. When Claire Trask fled Germany for the Netherlands in August 1939 in the face of the imminent declaration of war, eventually making it to the United States, she could maintain that it was her grateful assistant who promoted the virtues of Germany’s “human material” for American consumption. The columns bearing her byline carried muted criticisms, while her protégée supplied the enthusiastic praise that ensured that the correspondents would not run afoul of the authorities.
No matter how distasteful the politics or how much her mentor disapproved of the regime, it must have seemed to Mildred that she was finally part of a world she had long dreamed of. She was familiar with the elite of the German film industry, and writing for a leading trade publication aimed at the decision-makers of New York and Hollywood. The “Aryanization” of the German film industry helped her achieve what she found impossible to do in America: build an influential career in the dramatic arts.
As the months passed and the world careened toward conflict over Hitler’s territorial demands, exhibition of German films in the United States fell sharply. As the opportunities to publish faded, Mrs. Trask began to look for other employment possibilities for Mildred. One of her favorite actresses was the exotic-looking Brigitte Horney, the stunning, husky-voiced blonde star of several hit films. Horney needed a personal assistant, and Mildred was immediately hired. Brigitte Horney and Mildred Gillars were two independent women from similar backgrounds.
The daughter of the eminent psychotherapist Karen Horney (1885–1952), Brigitte came from a harsh and difficult upbringing. Like Mildred’s stepfather, Oskar Horney was a cruel and abusive parent who suffered the collapse of his business. As conditions in the home worsened, Brigitte’s mother became suicidal and finally left her husband in 1926. Opportunistic, brilliant and ambitious, Brigitte remained in Nazi Germany after her mother left for the US to benefit from the “Aryanization” of the arts. She became one of Dr. Goebbels’ favored actresses; a member of the Volksböhne who starred in the cream of Nazi-era films. Groomed as a replacement for the exiled Marlene Dietrich, Horney starred in the hits Liebe, Tod und Teufel (Love, Death and the Devil, 1934), Savoy-Hotel 217 (1935) and Das Mädchen von Fanö (The Girl From the Isle of Fanö, 1941).
The striking actress made four successful films with the popular actor Joachim “Joschy” Gottschalk. Gottschalk’s immense popularity temporarily ensured his survival in the German film industry despite his marriage to a Jewish woman and his half-Jewish son. When Gottschalk made the mistake of introducing his wife to prominent Nazis at a social function, Goebbels demanded that the actor end the marriage. Gottschalk refused and the Minister threatened his wife and son with deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Goebbels arranged for Gottschalk’s induction into the army when the actor insisted on going with his family to the camp. In 1941, Gottschalk and his wife sedated their son and turned on the gas. The three perished moments before the arrival of the Gestapo. In open contempt of Goebbels (who wanted to keep news of the actor’s death a secret), Brigitte Horney openly attended the funeral of her close friend and colleague.
Despite it all, Brigitte went on working for the Nazi propaganda machine until the end of the war. Her most notable role came in 1943 when she portrayed the Russian empress Catherine the Great in the film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. An expensive disaster of epic proportions, Munchausen was one of the regime’s final productions. She went on to finish t
he fittingly titled Am Ende der Welt (The End of the World, 1944) as Allied bombs fell around her. With her career and country in shambles, Horney fled to Switzerland in 1945 and five years later immigrated to the United States.
Berlin Darkens
While Mildred Gillars was enjoying her patron’s connections with Nazi cinema’s leading lights, the repression of German Jewry progressed rapidly. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for the average Berliner not to notice the brutal effects of anti-Jewish legislation. From the inauguration of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935, when the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor” forbade intermarriage and sexual relations between Gentiles and Jews, an unrelenting effort to drive Germany’s Jews abroad was underway.
The very definition of German citizenship was changed with the “Reich Citizenship Law” establishing “German or kindred blood” as the sole factor determining citizenship in the Third Reich. The Nuremberg Laws were quickly amended on November 15, 1935, when it was decreed that a Jew could not be a citizen, could not vote, partake in political activities or hold public office. The term “Jew” was defined in law as anyone descended from at least three fully Jewish grandparents. The category Mischlinge (half or partially Jewish) was established to denote anyone who was descended from two fully Jewish grandparents, belonged to the Jewish religious community, was married to a Jew, was the offspring of a mixed Gentile–Jewish marriage, or was the offspring of an extramarital sexual relationship with a Jew. This discreet hairsplitting became the foundation for the body of Nazi racial law that would become a niche for pseudo-scientists and barbaric physicians determined to flush out the last drop of Jewish blood from German society.
Axis Sally: The American Voice of Nazi Germany Page 6