The Voelkischer Beobachter, personal organ of Reichsfuehrer Hitler, today assailed the American March of Time film, “New Palestine,” charging that scenes of persecution of Jews were not made in Germany but faked in the United States.
The uniformed Nazis shown raiding Jews shops, the paper said, were not Nazis but men in the uniforms of American soldiers, which closely resembles those of the storm troops.
The Beobachter declared that the scenes were filmed in New London, Connecticut, with the participation of the local population and United States naval forces.
“This is how the public is being misled about Germany,” the Beobachter said.
Ralph Bolan, vice-president of March of Time, Inc., explained yesterday to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that no claim was ever
made that the entire film was screened in Germany. “However,” he said, “we took great pains in our research work to make the scenes as accurate and as close to fact as possible. The shots of persecution of Jews were based on reports by the Associated Press, the United Press and the New York Times.”
He stated that the scenes of Nazis and storm troops riding in trucks were made in Germany and then combined with scenes enacted in the United States. Parts of the picture were made in New London, he said.
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.
