A German Hollywood Tour 1
   Tracing the German-Hollywood Connection

   “Los Angeles was already a vast city at that time. If you
    wanted to visit friends, you had to drive great distances.”
      — Cornelius Schnauber in Hollywood Haven
 

H O L L Y W O O D   E X I L E S   T O U R

Hollywood and the Émigrés
 

The view from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery,
where many famous émigrés now rest.
Photo © Hyde Flippo

Not all of the émigrés who arrived in Hollywood were originally in the film business. The Hollywood exile community included artists, writers, poets, composers and others who only resorted to film work as a means of survival. Nor did they all arrive at the same time or choose to remain in the U.S. after the war. In a chapter entitled “Hollywood and the Problem of Emigration,” Schnauber writes:

This book focuses on the years between 1933 and 1952, the time during which over 1,500 German and Austrian émigrés and exiles worked in the Hollywood studios. Both dates are to be viewed as milestones: In 1933 the National Socialists came to power, which resulted in mass emigrations; in 1952, Thomas Mann, the most prominent of the exiles who had lived in the USA, returned to Europe. Futhermore, during the late forties and early fifties, many other émigrés returned to their native lands.

The time which interests us actually extends beyond these dates. First, several of the émigrés preferred to remain in their adopted country after the defeat of the Nazis. Second, many artists had already come to Hollywood before 1933 in order to make films, and after the seizure of power by the National Socialists they stayed where they had already done so much of their work. These emigrants would have been persecuted either because they were Jews or because of their politics, or because they had refused to collaborate with the Nazis.

But life in their adopted land was not always easy, either. Schnauber writes about the culture shock, isolation, language difficulties and other problems faced by the German and Austrian exiles in the Los Angeles of the thirties and forties.

Los Angeles was already a vast city at that time. If you wanted to visit friends, you had to drive great distances. Thus in order to get from Hollywood to Santa Monica, where the actress and writer Salka Viertel had a popular cultural salon, for example, or to Pacific Palisades, where Thomas Mann or Lion Feuchtwanger frequently entertained guests, you had to make a trip of over an hour. Furthermore, you had to ask where you could find a good restaurant or a reasonable place to shop. Today this is easier, because the number and variety of good European, exotic and American restaurants has increased enormously...

Los Angeles had a thriving cultural community, but the theaters and concert halls were far from the residential communities. Los Angeles was, and still is, in a certain way, a city of cultural islands.

Nevertheless, many of the émigrés thrived in the California sun. Some of them became important film directors or movie stars, and their impact on Hollywood and world fimmaking is precisely what the German-Hollywood Connection is all about. Before we start the tour, let's take a closer look at this element of the German-Hollywood trail.
 

From Babelsberg to Hollywood: This film studio is located south of Berlin.
Many Hollywood émigrés once worked in the Ufa studios located here.
Photo © Hyde Flippo
 

The Filmmakers

Some of the German and Austrian filmmakers arrived early in Hollywood's history. The Austrian director Erich von Stroheim, for instance, was already cranking out silent films like Greed and The Wedding March in the 1920s. Also influential in Hollywood's silent era were the German directors Ernst Lubitisch, Paul Leni and Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Later arrivals such as the Austrian directors Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger became important figures in filmmaking and the Hollywood system of the forties, fifties and on into the sixties. As the tour progresses, we'll take a closer look at some of these key émigrés.

N E X T > First Tour

Hollywood Haven: Homes and Haunts of the European Émigrés and Exiles in Los Angeles
by Cornelius Schnauber, Copyright © 1997 Ariadne Press, Riverside, Calif. Excerpts used by permission.

Some interesting German-Hollywood film books are out of print and difficult to find. But often you can find them through Alibris.com. Just click on the Alibris.com banner below!

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