One industry that has flourished in trouble-ridden Austria during recent months has been the talking pictures. Since the advent of the Hitler regime and the foisting of the esthetic ideals of Herr Dokter Paul Joseph Goebbels upon the German motion picture industry, there has been a rapidly diminishing demand for the German product. Even in Germany, the docile audiences seemed to prefer anything in the way of entertainment to the propaganda vehicles to which the German film producers were restricted by their overlord, and the films produced in Austria began to enjoy a vogue.
The ousting of Jews from all phases of the industry in the Reich materially aided the Austrian producers, putting at their disposal a wealth of talent previously almost a German monopoly. Germany’s loss was Austria’s gain.
But Austria is, after all, a small country, with a prospective movie audience of insignificant proportions compared to that of Germany. And Austria is, as it has & dependent on the showing of its motion pictures in Germany for a market great enough to support the industry. Against Austria’s 700 motion picture houses, Germany has 5,000. A determining factor in the Austrian movie industry is, therefore, the agreement with Germany, governing the quota of Austrian films allowed to be shown in the latter country.
This agreement, about to expire, has been renewed, the cables report, but under conditions which may well mark the end of Austria’s bid for artistic supremacy.
Herr Dokter Goebbels was well ware of the increasing popularity of the Austrian motion pictures even in his own well-coordinated land and it irked this arbiter of German culture and thought. Consequently, when the time came for discussion on the renewal of the reciprocal quota agreement, he was ready with a set of conditions he was confident could remedy this undesired situation.
When the Austrian film representatives came to Berlin to discuss renewal of the agreement, they were told bluntly that unless they agreed to these conditions, the agreement would not be renewed. The Nazi demands were, of course, for the exclusion of “non-Aryan” actors and actresses from the casts of Austrian pictures, and for the virtual exclusion of Jews from the other phases of the industry as well.
The conditions included the agreement of the Austrians to submit, to almost the same degree as the German producers, to the dictates of the Reichsministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment.
The Austrians had to submit. And so we have the spectacle of Austria, where the government is pledged to opose legal anti-Semitism, enforcing in the motion picture industry an “Aryan clause” and depriving itself of its wealth of newly-acquired talent.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
