Confession of a Nazi Spy object profile
Emily Low
The famous movie, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, was released in 1939 by director Anatole Litvak and producer Robert Lord, follows the storyline of an FBI agent Edward Renard who was sent on a mission to uncover a Nazi spy ring in the United States. This mission was completely dangerous as there were secret Nazi police officers who were on the lookout for undercover spies. When spies were found by the Nazi’s they were sent back to Germany. This film shines light on the propaganda that the Nazi’s posed in the United States as well as how they tried to overthrow America leading up to the infamous World War II. This film was the first movie in Hollywood to ever really touch on Nazi regimes in the United States before World War II and does a great job of showing viewers how sneaky and intelligent the Nazi agents were at threatening the country and taking over with their propaganda efforts.
Caption: Confessions of a Nazi Spy film art
American patriotism is something that was hugely threatened by the Nazi’s and their agenda of controlling the people. The United States prides themselves on having patriotism as well as loyalty, but with the Nazi’s using their manipulation, it was very easy for them to use their Nazi Propaganda machine to persuade the American public to believe that their ideology was in fact the solution to America’s problems. The head and leader of the Nazis spy ring, Paul Lukas, was able to use this persuasion to charm American’s into believing him.
Caption: Confessions of a Nazi Spy Image
This late 1930’s film showcases the FBI, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and how they were able to catch a German American man, Kurt Schnieder, who was hired by the Nazi’s to spy on the American’s to discover if America was planning on fighting back against the Nazi’s. After Kurt Schneider was caught by the American FBI, he is forced into spilling the German’s secrets as well as revealing all of the names of who is involved in the Nazi Spy Ring. When Schneider finally did reveal names of the Nazi’s, the American FBI was able to see just how intense and complex their work really was. The FBI agents, specifically Edward Renard, used his skills of interrogating and wire tapping to show just how ruthless and intense the Nazi’s truly were. Their dedication to finding out information about the American military was unlike any other, and they were even willing to go against their own country. German-Americans were being recruited to gather this information to relay back to Germany.
Caption: Confessions of a Nazi Spy character Ed Renard talking to Kurt Schnieder
In the end of the film, the FBI is able to get enough information about this Spy Ring to infiltrate the whole ordeal to catch all of the spies and make them confess to their crimes. The film is very consistent with portraying the Nazi’s as dangerous and truthless whereas they portrayed the United States as loyal and protective of what is right. Because of films and media like this, where there is a clear emphasis on Germany being the bad guy, it has a negative connotation for the Germans and German Americans who had no part of the propaganda regime. The perception of German Americans was tarnished because of this, and still to this day.
The spy ring was very similar to the German’s Bund. The Bund was a German-American Nazi organization that was established in 1936 to create a “New Germany” with an emphasis on their pro-nazi agenda while in America. There were even Bund summer camps with hundreds of children enrolling to teach and train Hilter Youth.
https://www.tcm.com/video/409217/confessions-of-a-nazi-spy-1939-movie-clip-a-man-of-your-caliber
Caption: Confessions of a Nazi Spy movie clip
