Ufa and the Harry Warner Lighter

The “Ufatone” Mystery: Harry Warner's German Cigarette Lighter

“Jack Warner often boasted about his aversion to Nazism, even though his brother Harry had worked more vigilantly to make the American citizenry aware of the approaching war in Europe while the United States was officially neutral.”
    — from Celluloid Soldiers: Warner Bros.'s Campaign Against Nazism by Michael E. Birdwell

	How did this 1930s German cigarette lighter end up with Harry Warner's name engraved on the other side? And why is Ufa's German sound technology spelled in English as "UFATONE"? Photo © Hyde Flippo

It was a real mystery. In January 2002 I received an email from a man whose hobby was collecting assorted items, including vintage cigarette lighters. Robert Gallant had found me and the German-Hollywood site while researching a lighter he had bought at a flea market. He wanted to know more about what he said was a German cigarette lighter engraved with the name of Warner Brothers studio executive Harry Warner. Engraved on the other side was the logo of the German film studio Ufa and the word “Ufatone.”

Frankly, I was puzzled. Although photos of the classic German Kaschie lighter seemed to show an authentic item, how could there possibly be a connection between the Hollywood studio that was the very first to go on the offensive against Hitler Germany and a gift lighter from the German studio that became a Nazi propaganda tool? Harry (born Hirsch) Warner and his three brothers were Jewish! It just didn't seem likely that an Ufa lighter could have Harry Warner's name on it.

Robert told me that he had bought the lighter for $50.00 without even knowing who Harry Warner was, much less what role the German Ufa studios had played in history. It was only shortly before he contacted me that he had discovered some of the history behind the names on the lighter from this site and other online sources. He was kind enough to share what little he knew and how he had happened to discover the vintage lighter at a southern California flea market, but we still could not explain the unusual connection this unique lighter hinted at.

After talking with Robert, I decided to contact some people in Germany who might know the answer. But no one I talked with could explain the Harry Warner lighter. Even after some additional research in books and online, the “Ufatone” cigarette lighter remained a mystery.

Fast forward to two years later. In early 2004 I got a phone call from Lion Television in New York City. A producer for the PBS series “History Detectives” explained that they were planning a Hollywood-themed program. She asked me if I knew of anything Hollywood-related that they could use for a “History Detectives” segment. At first I really couldn't think of anything that might be suitable. Then the lady on the phone emphasized that it had to be an object, a physical item whose history was in doubt. Object? Wait a minute! Suddenly the Harry Warner lighter popped into my mind, the mysterious Ufa lighter that could be an interesting part of Hollywood history.

I described the brass Kaschie lighter with its “Ufatone” inscription and mentioned its possible connection between Germany's Ufa studios and a Hollywood studio boss. They were interested in the lighter story, so I put the “History Detectives” people in touch with the lighter's owner, Robert Gallant, in Riverside, California.

The Kaschie lighter with Harry's name - Photo © Hyde Flippo WEB > PBS - History Detectives: The Warner Lighter - “What is the connection between Harry Warner, known for his anti-fascist commitment, and a studio that became the propaganda tool of the Nazi party?” WEB > PBS - History Detectives: Warner Bros. Fight Fascism - “Hollywood, like most of America, largely ignored the growing threat of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. The exception was the Warner Brothers studio, headed by Jack and Harry Warner.”

The “History Detectives” Hollywood episode debuted in the summer of 2004. The “Warner Lighter” segment was one of three Hollywood-related mysteries that were solved by the PBS researchers. (See the PBS links above.) The PBS detectives were able to establish several historical connections for the unusual cigarette lighter and explain how it likely came to have Harry Warner's name on it.

Here are a few interesting facts uncovered by the “History Detectives”:

• A 1952 fire destroyed most of the Warner Bros. records (making research more difficult).
• The Warner lighter model was patented by the Kaschie company in April 1931.
• Kaschie lighters were marketed to Ufa and other companies as presentation gifts with logos in the 1930s.
• Harry himself, according to his daughter (Betty Warner Sheinbaum), always used "H.M. Warner" for his personal items.
• The Ufatone brand name was created to market the Ufa sound system, but it did not last longer than a year (1930); an ad for Ufatone appeared in a U.S. film yearbook in 1930. Harry Warner probably received his engraved lighter as a gift from Ufa that same year.
• The German operetta film "The Immortal Vagabond" ("Der unsterbliche Lump") played in Warner Bros. U.S. cinemas in 1930, in a dubbed version using the Ufatone sound system.
• In 1932 Harry Warner traveled to Berlin, Germany on business (he also had relatives there), taking 12-year-old Betty along. That was a year before Hitler came to power.

MORE > For more about the Ufa studio, see our Ufa page.

Additional facts not mentioned in the PBS episode:

• The brand name Kaschie comes from the name of the company's founder: Karl Schieder. The firm's full name was Karl Schieder Metallwaren, founded in Nuremberg in 1919.
• In the early 1920s German engineer Hans Vogt (1890-1979), together with colleagues Joseph Massolle (1889-1957) and Jo Engl (1893-1942), developed a sound-on-film process for the Swiss company Tri-Ergon (Greek-Latin, "work of the three").
• The name "Ufatone" is the English version (with an e) of German "Ufaton" (no e), from German der Ton = sound. Ufaton was a popular German music publisher in the 1920s and '30s.
• Ufa got off to a slow start in sound, buying Tri-Ergon rights in 1925, making one sound film and then bailing out in 1926. The American Fox studio bought the Tri-Ergon sound system rights in 1927 and re-named it Movietone. But in the early 1930s Ufa made a big comeback in sound with pictures such as The Blue Angel (1930) starring Marlene Dietrich. However, by then Ufa faced stiff competition from German rivals Tobis and Klangfilm.

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