Those of us who are not true believers in Fox’s propaganda are constantly amazed that this company is allowed to practice its virtual mind control in the United States. At a time when Donald Trump feels free to broadcast threats about what his administration will do to our system of government, Fox broadcasts his every word to the American people. But it’s even more outrageous than we know. Fox News was born in Nazi Germany. In 1932, the German newsreel subsidiary of Fox News Channel’s corporate ancestor, Fox Films, intervened in national elections in Germany. This was reported in an article entitled: In 1932, Fox Helped Make Propaganda Films for Hitler. The article was written by Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D. in 2010.1
Tarpley begins by pointing out how strange it is that a television network carries so many political candidates and propagandists on its payroll. He lists GOP and “Tea Party” partisans Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Sean Hannity. Considering his revelations in this article, we would have to conclude that Fox was born bad.
Fox and Weimar Democracy
For the following brief history of Fox’s wartime activities, Tarpley cites three different works. The first is Hans Mommsen’s authoritative study entitled The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy. In 2010, Mommsen was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Bochum. His study goes into some detail about the methods used by Nazi propagandists. Under the leadership of Goebbels, the Party used the political propaganda film as early as 1930. In places where Hitler and other prominent Party leaders were not able to appear, they would show films instead. The American company Twentieth Century Fox manufactured the outdoor sound film for the NSDAP.
The Methods of Joseph Goebbels
Tarpley also cites Scholar William G. Chrystal, who confirms Mommsen’s account. Crystal provides further important details in his 1975 article on “Nazi Party Election Films, 1927-1938.”
Support for two additional 1932 election films, Der Führer (The Leader), and Hitlers Kampf um Deutschland (Hitler’s Struggle for Germany) came from the German-based subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Tönende Wochenschau (Fox Weekly Sound Newsreel [i.e., Fox Movietone News]). In addition, they also supplied some mobile sound film vans to be used during the campaign. Thus at least part of Hitler’s support in that critical time was the result of Fox’s help.
The background for this assistance is unknown since Fox Tönende Wochenschau records were destroyed during the war, according to a July 9, 1974 letter to Chrystal from Joseph Bellfort, who was at that time the vice president of the Twentieth Century Fox International Film Corporation.2
Hitler’s Use of Grievance
Der Führer (The Leader), one of the two sound films subsidized by Fox Tönende Wochenschau, was originally titled Volk und Führer (Nation and Leader). It was a relatively short film, but it provided many people with their first opportunity to hear Hitler speak.3 In it Hitler, speaking in Berlin on April 4, 1932, develops his characteristic theme that the German army was betrayed and stabbed in the back in November 1918 by the Weimar politicians, especially the Social Democrats.
This speech was part of Hitler’s campaign for president. He was defeated in this campaign on April 10, 1932, by von Hindenburg. Nevertheless he received almost 37 Percent of the votes. This represented a new high in Nazi support up to that time.
In the subsequent parliamentary election held on July 31, 1932, the Nazis added 19 percent to their previous totals to emerge for the first time as the largest single party in Germany with 38 percent of the votes — thanks in part to the assistance rendered to Hitler by Fox Movietone News.
Of the second film Fox made for Hitler, Chrystal writes: “…new Reichstag elections were called for November 6, 1932…. The second of the Fox-subsidized productions, Hitlers Kampf um Deutschland (Hitler’s Struggle for Germany), appeared on August 30. It comprised 606 meters of Hitler’s July, 1932 Eberswalde speech. An indication of the effectiveness of this speech and its film record can be found in its later use. When Reichstag elections were held again in March 1933, this same film was re-issued under a new title, Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler Spricht (Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler Speaks).4
Hitler Taylors His Speeches to the ‘Psychotic Public Mood’
Hitler’s speech in the Brandenburg Stadium in Eberswalde on July 27, 1932, one of three he gave that day, is a classic demagogic performance. As Mommsen points out, “in the hectic 1932 election campaign” the Nazis organized mass rallies featuring “speeches that Hitler tailored specifically to the psychotic public mood that had been created by the deepening crisis” (Mommsen, p. 338).
“We are intolerant,” raved Hitler, promising to drive more than thirty other political parties out of Germany. “We have one goal before us, to fanatically and ruthlessly shove all these parties into the grave,” he added. This was the message which Fox Movietone News helped deliver to the German public. Six months after he gave this speech, Hitler seized power as chancellor and began consolidating his power as dictator — once again thanks in part to the help of Fox Movietone News.
Fox Made ‘Illicit Contributions in Kind’
Tarpley emphasizes that Chrystal describes Fox as having “subsidized” Hitler’s critical 1932 election campaigns. He says this can be considered as the 1930s equivalent of illicit contributions in kind to a politician under current US election law. This charge is often made against Fox News today. As an example, he cites a recent filing by the Democratic Governors’ Association in regard to the Kasich gubernatorial campaign in Ohio.
Benito Mussolini Speaks to America
The Italisn fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was a big fan of Fox Movietone News. He was given the opportunity to make one of his famous bravura speeches for the Fox camera. According to Robert Edwin Herzstein, one of the first sound newsreels shown in the United States depicted Mussolini in March 1929 speaking in English directly to the American people, saying: “Your talking newsreel has tremendous possibilities. Let me speak through it in twenty cities in Italy once a week and I need no other power” (Herzstein, p. 318). In the mind of the Duce, newsfilm was already the handmaiden of fascist power.
Herzstein’s survey of the Fox Movietone archive for 1930-1935 was extensive. However, there is no record of criticism or unfavorable coverage of the fascist dictator.5
Fox News Channel Owns and Manages Fox Movietone’s Collection Today
The last Fox Movietone newsreels appeared in the United States in 1963. According to the Wikipedia article on Movietone News, parts of the Fox Movietone newsreel collection are still “owned and managed by the Fox Film Corporation’s corporate successor (and namesake), Fox News Channel. The majority of the collection is stored in New Jersey, mostly unseen since the newsreels were originally shown in theatres. During its early years, Fox News Channel had a weekend show which played the newsreels.”6
- Hans Mommsen, The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996, p. 339. emphasis added. Fox Film Corporation merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to form Twentieth Century Fox in May, 1935. ↩︎
- William G. Chrystal, “Nazi Party Election Films, 1927-1938,” in Cinema Journal XV:1, Autumn 1975, p. 32, published by the University Texas Press for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, emphasis added. See also Hans Barkhausen, “Kurzübersicht: Filme der NSDAP, 1927-1945,” and “Die NSDAP als Filmproduzentin,” in Günter Moltmann and Karl Friedrich Reimers, Zeitgeschichte im Film- und Tondokument: 17 historische, pädagogische, und sozialwissenschaftliche Beiträge, edited by Günter Moltmann and Karl Friedrich Reimers (Göttingen: Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1970). As Cited by Tarpley. ↩︎
- Chrystal, p. 33 ↩︎
- Chrystal, p. 35 ↩︎
- For part of Mussolini’s remarks, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTXhez2mNmM ↩︎
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movietone_News ↩︎