Title Hollywood's spies : the undercover surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles / Laura B. Rosenzweig

Published New York : New York University Press, 2017

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 285 pages) : illustrations Series The Goldstein-Goren series in American Jewish history Goldstein-Goren series in American Jewish history. Contents Part I. Nazis in Los Angeles -- Nazis in Los Angeles -- Becoming Hollywood's spies -- The McCormack-Dickstein Committee -- Part II. Undercover -- The proclamation -- Discovering the Berlin connection -- Discovering the Nazi fifth column -- Part III. Resistance -- Local focus, national calling -- The Dies Committee -- The News Research Service -- Part IV. Legacy -- The war years and beyond -- Afterword -- Appendix 1: Partial list of right-wing individuals and groups investigated by the LAJCC, 1936/46 -- Appendix 2: Key to spy codes -- Appendix 3: Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee, June 1934 -- Appendix 4: Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee, November 1942 Summary Tells the remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who established the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country in the 1930sIn April 1939, Warner Brothers studios released the first Hollywood film to confront the Nazi threat in the United States. Confessions of a Nazi Spy, starring Edward G. Robinson, told the story of German agents in New York City working to overthrow the U.S. government. The film alerted Americans to the dangers of Nazism at home and encouraged them to defend against it. Confessions of a Nazi Spy may have been the first cinematic shot fired by Hollywood against Nazis in America, but it by no means marked the political awakening of the film industry's Jewish executives to the problem. Hollywood's Spies tells the remarkable story of the Jewish moguls in Hollywood who paid private investigators to infiltrate Nazi groups operating in Los Angeles, establishing the first anti-Nazi Jewish resistance organization in the country--the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee (LAJCC). Drawing on more than 15,000 pages of archival documents, Laura B. Rosenzweig offers a compelling narrative illuminating the role that Jewish Americans played in combating insurgent Nazism in the United States in the 1930s. Forced undercover by the anti-Semitic climate of the decade, the LAJCC partnered with organizations whose Americanism was unimpeachable, such as the American Legion, to channel information regarding seditious Nazi plots to Congress, the Justice Department, the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department. Hollywood's Spies corrects the decades-long belief that American Jews lacked the political organization and leadership to assert their political interests during this period in our history and reveals that the LAJCC was one of many covert "fact finding" operations funded by Jewish Americans designed to root out Nazism in the United States Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-273) and index Notes Online resource; title from READ title page (OverDrive, viewed September 26, 2017) Subject Nazis in motion pictures. Anti-Nazi movement -- California -- Los Angeles Motion picture industry -- California -- Los Angeles -- History -- 20th century Motion pictures -- Political aspects -- United States -- History -- 20th century HISTORY -- Jewish. HISTORY -- United States -- State & Local -- West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY) PERFORMING ARTS -- Reference. Anti-Nazi movement Motion picture industry Motion pictures -- Political aspects Nazis in motion pictures SUBJECT Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- History -- 20th century Subject California -- Los Angeles California -- Los Angeles -- Hollywood United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9781479828333 1479828335

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