10
Saturday,
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH
January 4, 1941.
HOLLYWOOD
-Nazi Spy Den
Hollywood
San Pedro
U.S.Home Fleet Base
WHEN General Francisco a gruff Teutonic voice ordering used as a distributing point for
Franco coined the sinis- them to pack and be ready to Nazi literature.
leave the next morning.
He waited up all night for
ter phrase, "Fifth Column," The producer called in the the chauffeur and his propa- probably the last city in the couple immediately and demand- ganda crew. They never show- world he had in mind was ed an explanation. Hollywood.
Yet to-day a Nazi Fifth Column marches in Holly- wood, Beverly Hills and the towns surrounding the in- fluential motion-picture capital.
According to all indications, next to that of the New York metropolitan area, it is the largest, most rapidly growing and most active Fifth Column in the United States!
What is this Hollywood Filth Column? How does it work?
Roughly, Hitler's Hollywood undercover armies are divided into two major groups.
One consists of professional spicy and intelligence operatives. The other comprises a host of U.S. Nazis, Nazi sympathisers. German American Bundsters, propagandists
otherwise and Hitler-subsidised self-appointed heralds of the New Order.
The first group is not in- terested in Hollywood, except in a secondary way.
Its primary concern is with the many extremely strategic defence points and industries which lie within a few miles, and sometimes yards, of the motion-picture studios.
• Marlene Dietrich, crst- white German citizen signing her American naturalisation papors. A similar photo- graph was distributed with
a German caption represent- ing Dietrich as "betraying hor Fatherland."
At first they surlily refused to talk. But when he pretend- ed to be wounded by their de sertion and mentioned the two years of pleasant association, they broke into tears.
They did not want to leave him, they said, because they were very happy.
But they had been ordered to leave at once for Brazil, where
The great aircraft factories of jobs in an important Govern- Southern California — Douglas, ment official's house had been Lockheed, Northrup and such, secured for them by the German where sixty per cent. of all intelligence. Uncle. Sam's military aeroplanes are mado and tested.
The home base of the United States fleet at San Pedro. The destroyer base at San Diego. The oil fields, Fort MacArthur, the West Coast aviation strong- hold of the U.S. Army at March Field.
Unless they obeyed they would never again see Germany or their relatives.
That was the first time the
producer had the faintest inkling his house harboured German operatives.
A handsome, silent, extremely
efficient blond chauffeur was the
pride and joy of a Hollywood
studio executive.
This active, professional group of spics obviously takes its orders direct from Berlin, via San Francisco and the German He hadn't had him long consulate there, headed by the only a few months-but the ultra-charming Captain Fritz smartness of his appearance, Wiedemann, Hitler's former his aristocratic bearing and World War commander, and polished manner made him the later his personal adjutant. envy of every other limousine Recently a German consular owner at the glittering pre- courier, one Herbert Hochne, mieres and social events of was arrested in Beverly Hills Hollywood. carrying a bag, which reputedly
held, in code, plans for disabling turn over the gate lodge on his The executive was pleased to the Panama Canal! His £3,000 ball was supplied by Captain big estate to this jewel.
Wiedemann.
Though he noticed that many But while the German spy times during the night the swarm is concerned with a more chauffeur had visitors, though vital game than the motion- sometimes in the small hours picture industry and its people, the muffled noises of cars arriv- It has a very direct contact with Ing and departing penetrated Hollywood.
his sleep, he thought nothing of The other day, a Hollywood It. producer, who has employed a Until one night, hunting his German couple'in his home for man, he strolled inside the the past two years, happened to chauffour's quarters. There ho pick up a telephone extension discovered stacks of pro-Nazi and hear one of his servants pamphlets, ready to be carried talking in Gorman.
out.
ed up.
in the guise of mental servants In Not all actual Nazi agents operate Hollywood, of course.
|60% U.S. Planes Madellere
40% Oil Supplies Stored Here
San
Diego
Destroyer. Base
It is just as easy to be unnoticed extensive pamphlet campaigns were
by being opulent in a wealthy, com- directed against the picture. munity such as the movie colony.
Actual Fifi Column penetration
But the objectives of this second fe of the Hollywood Fifth Column Into the creative departments of are different.
Hollywood 'studios is having a much Thele aims-strictly domestle-are tougher time. (1) to discredit Hollywood anti- Nazi movie-makers, stars and all alert to the danger and have taken In the drst place, the studios are pictures which faintly repel Nazi measures to have alled out an ex- doctrines; (2) to find and develop tensive questionnaire covering em
• Melvyn Douglas and Claudette Colbert. Douglas was another victim of Holly- wood Fifth Column troopers.
ployees' entire lives. Intimate ques- flons about race, religion, invest-. inents, ideologies and such-never usked before-must be filled in.
In the second place, so many people must pass on the eventual form of a finished Hollywood picture that it is virtually impossible for a Nazi propagandist to inject Hitler's message into a movie undetected.
The only Hollywood Incident In- yolving a studio high up with, the Naz Fifth Column that, has come to light is Indirect. It concerns an im~ portant producer's wife.
She started giving afternoon teas to her friends to discuss the world situation." The talks, somehow, al- ways led to Nazi idcology, and then out caine stacks of Nazi literature.
When word of these goings-on renched her husband, the goings-on. stopped right then. Just what he told his wife has not been recordedl and possibly couldn't be, anyway.
Nevertheless-while Firth Column- Ists are still being repulsed from the inner sanctum of Hollywood's studios, there is little doubt they have an eye to taking over eventually and Nazifying the movies if the dream of a Hitler world revolution ever spreads this for.
Hitler's American Bund Fuehrer, the discredited Fritz Kuhn, has pro Nazi sympathisers among the in- mised "n through cleaning of our fluential screen elite; (3) to stir up moht important medium of props- studio labour; (4) to spread the ganda and entertainment, the Holly doctrine of Hitlerism continually and wood film industry," when, supposed- Invishly; (5) to secure an expert ly, the great day dawns, knowledge of Hollywood and its studios for Der Tag when Hitler Fifth Column tramp along entirely But Hollywood. Is not letting the Lakes over.
..unharried.
Scurrilous pamphlets, organised "Smearing" campaigns, depredations, town dismisses Nazi work as fanes- While it is true that must of the threats and some subtle parlour con- tie, there are elements in Hollywood versation by Germanic glamour boys who take it seriously, as it certainly constitute is heavy artillery.
should be taken.
Often at night the letter-boxes of homes in the movie residential dis-
A number of privately-financed counter-csplonage and counter-pro-
tricts are stuffed with flaming propagandu groups have been formed to Nazi' and anti-Semitle pamphlets. Similar pamphlets are slipped inside morning papers, under milk bottles.
cars.
cep tab on the progress of the Fifth
Column.
——Major-studio-heads, stars and sisting of a prominent star, a writer, One voluntary group_of_nye,_con- workers have found them in their director, Press ngent and technical research man, devotes all its off- The pamphlets themselves, for studio time to scouting the Nazi public consumption, Arc mostly colum.
12
glorifying Germany and ridiculing Brloin,
Their secret les alone could rock Hollywood, But the only ones who "Smear' technique" is frequently can see them are officers of the directed at prominent movie per- Federal Bureau of Investigation. sonalities.
Not long ago Marlene Dietrich, an erstwhile German citizen, who re- cently beenme a naturalised Ameri- can, was a victim,
By
JACK WADE
A photograph showing Dietrich being sworn in as a U.S. citizen was. distributed with a German caption] which represented the picture as Vol. X No. 2 Dietrich "betraying her Fatherland."
Usually,
20
technique" of Hollywood's Nazl Fifth
however, the "smear THE Column is much more aggressive and widespread, It often consists of a sea of letters and telegrams backing up whispering campaigns of
viciousness.
reputation of being Communistie, up
Since parts of Hollywood had the
until the Hitler-Stalin deal, the term "Communist," is a convenient_red herring to be flourished by Fifth Column handa.
Much of the "Communtal" hue and cry which greeted the recent ap- pointment of Melvyn Dougins to a tlonul Guard was traced to Holly wood Fifth Column troopers,
commission in the California Na-
The same technique is currently being used on Fredric Morch and several other prominent Hollywood. stars.
May, 1940
HONG KONG NATURALIST
A quarterly Illustrated journal principally for Hong Kong and S. China.
Birds and Butterflios of Hong Kong.
Notos on Vegetable Insect
Saveral times recently star appear The ances have been needed for patrlatic programmes, rallies and so forth,
who were enger to lend their names But many big screen personalities
and talents had to be turned down because of Communist stigma at- tached to them, in large part, by the smearing methods of Hollywood Nazis.
The Fifth Column made an es- pecinily vigorous campaign against Warner Brothers' film expose of Nazi activities in the United States, "Confessions Of A Nazi Spy."
While it was being filmed, every chst member received letters threa- tening awful retribution unless ho quit the plcture (none did; nothing happened)
Some expensive portraits waTC Understanding the langungo To his dismay, the executive marred the only downright sabotage himself, ho was amazed to hear realised his home was being yot reported on a Hollywood get, and
Posts in Hongkong Typhoon of Nov. 23, 1939.
Hail and Halos
'A Synopsis of the Fishes
.of China.
etc., atc.
PRICE $2.00 Prepaid subscription $7.00 (Back Numbers from Vol. IV. available)
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