An aerial view of Warner Brothers Studio in 1930.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED

OPINION

Earlier this month, ABC - one of America’s major television networks - folded like a cheap suit when President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened: “I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Carr’s threat came after Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was murdered, and ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said this on air four days later: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

ABC executives started to worry…and within hours executives at Nexstar and Sinclair, two independent companies that own 60 ABC affiliate stations reaching more than 39 percent of U.S. households, said they refused to broadcast the Kimmel show…worry turned to outright fear.

A couple hours later, ABC - part of the Disney Entertainment Group - announced Kimmel’s show was “suspended indefinitely”. Most Sinclair and Nexstar stations serve conservative, largely Republican states.

(DON THOMPSON / iNFOnews.ca)

Currently, Nexstar is asking FCC approval for a merger with Tegna…and both Nexstar and Sinclair want the FCC to allow their stations to reach 80 percent of U.S. households.

So, people who are making a lot of money (pretty much anyone in television) wanted to make sure Trump’s FCC lackey didn’t pull the plug on the merger. It was easier to pull the plug on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”.

If you’re thinking, this is unprecedented in America…censorship on an authoritarian scale. You would, of course, be very wrong…which nearly 250 words into my column gets to my real point. But some backstory provides necessary context.

Hollywood and the entertainment industry have a long history of appeasement…of folding like a cheap suit. For more than decade - from Dec. 5, 1930 until Dec. 11, 1941 - Hollywood studios sent virtually every major movie they made to Germany for approval.

Specifically, that was more than 250 movies during what would become known as the Golden Age of Hollywood…blockbuster hits like “Gone with the Wind”, “The Wizard of Oz”, “King Kong”, “It Happened One Night”, and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.

Any negative framing of Nazi Germany or favourable portrayal of Jews - even mentions of Jewish-sounding names in the credits - was enough to raise the ire of Nazis…and get the movie edited.

Just as ABC caved last month because of fear that financially their advantageous mergers wouldn’t be allowed, Hollywood in the 1930s feared losing the world’s second-largest movie audience...Germany. After all, then as now, it seems to be all about the money.

The Nazis - like Republicans today - were good at spinning the truth…making things sound better than reality. The Nazis called the process of reviewing films… “zusammenarbeit”…or “collaboration” in English. It was collaboration based on fear…fear of losing money.

It started with the classic anti-war movie from Universal Studios, “All Quiet on the Western Front”…when Nazis in Berlin, whose representation in the Reichstag had grown from a handful to more than 100 that year, arranged for the first public screening of the movie in Germany.

The audience - comprised mostly of Nazis - was outraged…seeing it not as a universal protest against war…but a humiliation of German soldiers and Germany itself. Germany lost…it was in all the newspapers. The movie was halted half-way through…with Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels speaking from the theatre balcony about the movies “lies”.

Six days later, the German censorship board banned the movie from Germany…with Goebbels bragging, “Victory is ours! We have brought them to their knees.” The German public wouldn’t see “All Quiet on the Western Front” for two more decades.

The Nazis pushed for and were given dozens of edits in the movie shown anywhere outside Germany. When Nazis learned unedited versions of the film were shown in Spain and El Salvador, they complained, the studio apologized and made the cuts for the movie worldwide.

In May of 1933, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz - who would later write “Citizen Kane” - penned a truthful movie about the treatment of Jews in Germany, called “The Mad Dog of Europe”.

Germany couldn’t use the same ploy as beforehand and to cancel this movie…the studio that was making the movie didn’t do business in Germany. So, the Nazis threatened the banning of all American movies. The Hays Office - which developed The Motion Picture Production Code - basically censoring movies…folded, again, like a cheap suit.

After that, Hollywood cultivated personal contacts with prominent Nazis. In 1937, Paramount’s new manager in Germany was Paul Thiefes, a Nazi Party member. MGM’s top executive in Germany, Frits Stengholt, divorced his Jewish wife…a “request” from the Nazi Propaganda Ministry. She ended up a few years later in a concentration camp.

Such is the history of “collaboration” and buckling under pressure…doing the wrong thing because of threats from government. It happened in Germany…and it’s happening now in America.

U.S. citizens should bone-up on history…see truth and lies…for what they are. As pointed out in virtually every crime show: “follow the money” and you’ll always find the bad guys.

— Don Thompson, an American awaiting Canadian citizenship, lives in Vernon and in Florida. In a career that spans more than 40 years, Don has been a working journalist, a speechwriter and the CEO of an advertising and public relations firm. A passionate and compassionate man, he loves the written word as much as fine dinners with great wines.

We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor.

News from © iNFOnews, 2025