Confessions of a Nazi Spy is a 1939 American spy political thriller film directed by Anatole Litvak for Warner Bros. Pictures. It was the first explicitly anti-Nazi film to be produced by a major Hollywood studio, being released in May 1939, four months before the beginning of World War II in Europe, and two and a half years before the United States' official entry into the war.
The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated from their country after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Many of the German actors who appeared in the film changed their names for fear of reprisals against relatives still living in Germany. Harry, Albert, and Jack Warner, who then owned Warner Bros, were Jewish.
The film's story is based on a series of articles by FBI officer Leon G. Turrou, recounting his investigation of Nazi spy rings in the United States. Parts of the film are drawn from the Rumrich spy case, the first major international espionage case in American history.
Contents
Plot
A silhouetted narrator connects the film to recent events, beginning in a quiet corner of Scotland in 1937. A postman delivers letters from all over the world to a Mrs. MacLaughlin, who forwards the contents of one envelope to Dr. Karl Kassel in New York City. Later, Kassel harangues an audience of German-Americans at the Café Nuremberg. Most are wearing the uniform of the German American Bund. He tells them that the Führer has declared war on the evils of democracy and that, as Germans, they should carry out his wishes and claim power. The crowd salutes, "Sieg Heil!"
Kurt Schneider, an unemployed malcontent, is inspired to become a spy and writes to Hitler's personal newspaper. German Naval Intelligence knows that he is not a double agent because the Americans have no formal counterespionage system. Franz Schlager, a naval officer sailing to New York on the steamship Bismarck, is ordered to contact Schneider. Meanwhile, beauty operator Hilda Kleinhauer informs on her clients to the Gestapo and carries material for Schlager.
An American Legionnaire challenges Kassel at a meeting. He and others speaking out for democracy are attacked.
Schneider boasts to his friend Werner, a private in the Air Corps, that he receives instructions from Hitler. Werner gets the Z code, and Schneider obtains medical records that reveal troop strength in New York. Schneider proudly gives Schlager the information and receives $50 a month, Mrs. MacLaughlin's address, and a list of new objectives.
Kassel is called back to Germany. He takes his mistress, Erika Wolff, and leaves his wife behind. The narrator provides a dramatic description of the fascist way of life. Kassel is put in charge of all Nazi activities in the United States. Under the slogan, "America for Americans," the country is flooded with propaganda while spies target military operations.
Thanks to the postman's curiosity, British Military Intelligence uncovers Mrs. MacLaughlin's role as postmistress for a worldwide network of spies. American military intelligence in New York, consisting of Major Williams and one assistant, turns to the FBI for help in exposing spies, although it has never played that role before. FBI Agent Ed Renard takes the case.
Cast
Casting notes
Several actors in the film were expatriates from Germany and other European countries living in the United States, some of whom had moved to flee Nazi oppression. To prevent retaliation against their relatives still living in Germany, many appeared in the film uncredited or under aliases. These actors were Hedwiga Reicher ('Celia Sibelius'), Wolfgang Zilzer ('John Voigt'), Rudolph Anders ('Robert Davis'), Wilhelm von Brincken ('William Vaughn'), and Martin Kosleck (uncredited).
Based on a true story
Screenwriter John Wexley based his script on real events and the articles of former FBI agent Leon G. Turrou, who had been active in investigating Nazi spy rings in the United States prior to the war, quit the FBI and continued publishing articles on the topic that J. Edgar Hoover had largely ignored and tried to prevent from publication. Authors Paul Buhle and David Wagner of Radical Hollywood wrote that it "treated a real-life case" and that Warner Bros. had been warned by the Dies Committee "against slurring a 'friendly country'".
Parts of the movie were a fictionalized account of a real-life espionage case, the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case, and the eventual trial in 1938 involving individuals convicted of spying for German government. The FBI said the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case was their "first major international spy case" and that Leon Turrou "was placed in charge" but had later been fired by FBI chief Hoover. In fact, Turrou had first quit and been retroactively fired to strip him of benefits. Guenther Gustave Maria Rumrich was arrested on February 14, 1938, and charged with spying for Germany. He came to the FBI's attention when he attempted to obtain 50 passport application forms from the Passport Office in New York City. In the film, Francis Lederer, as Schneider, plays the role equivalent to the real Rumrich.
The scene where an unnamed American Legionaire played by Ward Bond challenges Kassel at a meeting, is supported by others speaking out for democracy, provoking an attack by Bundists, is based on an actual event that occurred in late April 1938 when approximately 30 World War I American Legion Veterans stood up to the Bund in New York City during a celebration of Hitler's birthday. The veterans were severely beaten and later Cecil Schubert, who suffered a fractured skull, was personally recognized for his bravery by Mayor La Guardia.
Production
The Production Code Administration, led by notorious antisemite Joseph Breen, first recommended shelving the film citing concerns about losing access to the German market and saying it unduly criticized a particular world leader (Hitler), but later acquiesced after alterations including removing any mention of Jewish people, Hitler's big lie. The PCA was heavily lobbied by the German government, particularly from their consulate in L.A., to prevent the release of anti-Nazi movies. After the release of the film, the PCA announced that they would not permit the release of any other anti-Nazi films. The studio and its personnel received hundreds of threatening letters in connection to the film, resulting in its doors being heavily guarded during filming. Jack Warner himself insisted on filming without interference, saying that "it is time America woke up to the fact that Nazi spies are operating within our borders. Our picture will tell the truth—all of it—and it will speak for itself this summer".
Many actors turned down roles out of fear of repercussions including violence, and nobody would play Hitler no matter the pay, so the script was altered so that he was only present in newsreel footage. A 60-pound boom had been sabotaged to fall down on the set, nearly killing one of the main actors. Actor Ferdinand Schumann-Heink recalled that most of the film's German cast members were known only by numbers in order to protect the relatives of theirs that were still living in Germany then.
Release
The film was the first anti-Nazi film from a major American studio. At the premiere, there were almost as many policemen and special agents in the audience as customers. Wexley's script made a point of following the facts and real-life events of the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case whose participants went to trial in 1938. The film was re-released in 1940 with scenes describing events that had taken place since the initial release, such as the invasions of Norway and the Netherlands.
Pushback from Nazis and their local supporters saw theaters around the U.S. being picketed or vandalized, limiting the release. Fritz Kuhn, leader of the German American Bund, sued Warner Bros for $5 million, alleging that the film was libellous against him.
Confessions of a Nazi Spy was banned in Germany, Japan, and many Latin American and European countries. Norway also banned it in 1939. Adolf Hitler in particular banned all Warner Bros. productions from being shown in Nazi Germany as a result of the studio's work on the film. Warner Bros. was so surprised to hear that the British Board of Film Censors gave the film a U certificate that the studios telephoned the censors, asking them to confirm its passage for exhibition in the United Kingdom. The film remained banned in Germany for 32 years after the fall of the Nazis; in early 1977, after West Germany lifted its ban on "hard-core" anti-Nazi films, it was shown in West German cinemas as part of a series of such films that were made by Warner Bros. during World War II.
In the United States, it had a month-long rolling open.
Louis B. Mayer required all MGM employees to attend Lionel Barrymore's 61st birthday celebration, broadcast live on the NBC Red radio program Good News of 1939, in order to prevent their attendance of the premiere.
Reception
Confessions of a Nazi Spy opened to mainly positive reviews. The review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 92% approval rating based on 63 critics' reviews. It's consensus states: "Distinguished by its dogged adherence to the facts and Edward G. Robinson's forceful performance, Confessions of a Nazi Spy presents a tightly directed, intensely vivid cinematic document of wartime espionage in 1930s America."
Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News said that "Anatole Litvak has done a splendid job of creating suspense in building a case against the spies, but, I am grieved to say, he and the scenario writers have spoiled the effect of their big trial scene by permitting themselves to deliver a needless warning to the audience." Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times noted that the film's premiere in Hollywood was marked by hisses and boos, and remarked that the film was "stunningly acted, the word being apt for the performances by Paul Lukas, Francis Lederer and George Sanders, who surpass themselves in their portrayals." Harry Mines of the Los Angeles Daily News wrote that "suffice to say Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and others of the party will not like 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy.' Warner Bros, however, may rest assured of having done a patriotic service to the American people in making such a picture possible. For after glimpsing this factual document exposing a terrifying espionage system and stealthy spread of alien propaganda in a peace loving nation, it teaches the thoughtful citizenry of the United States the necessity of awareness." A critic for The Boston Globe wrote that "the picture never grows [hysterical] or overly vehement in its treatment, which makes the indictment against German espionage all the more powerful. The menace of concentration camps, tortures and nameless horrors to be found back in Germany for faithless Nazi agents is depicted in shadowy, but terrifying fashion." Writing under the Mae Tinee pseudonym, a critic for the Chicago Daily Tribune described the film as "potent anti-Nazi propaganda that presents a powerful and impassioned plea for the defense of the principles that have made America "the land of the free." There are times when the action seems ineptly strung together. This fact is undoubtedly due to the producers' determination that they would stick to facts and indulge in no fictional fancy work. But you are never confused, for off-screen narration, concisely delivered, keeps the decks of meaning cleared." Lowell Lawrence of the Kansas City Journal said that the "Warner Brothers have done a courageous thing in presenting this dramatized evidence of a national peril to the American people. The German government may retaliate not only against the producers but against every player in the cast. But the time has passed when foreign governments can dictate to Hollywood. Warners answered Nazi threats by giving "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" the kind of a production that presents the picture's message in the most impressive manner."