840.4061 Motion Pictures/35a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Germany ( Morris )
2732. The motion picture interests have requested the Department’s assistance and support in the protection of their interests in the occupied areas. We have endeavored to obtain reports from those areas with regard to the actual situation, but the information so far received is not at all complete. However, we do know in broad outline what is happening to the industry and have available certain specific details. Essentially the situation is that the companies are not permitted to operate in these areas and are denied possession of their properties including positive and negative prints and access to their books, and over and above this there has been confiscation of certain prints. Our information indicates that the activities of the Germans in this respect is directed principally against American interests. The American industry feels that it should be permitted to continue operation in the occupied areas if such privilege is permitted any other motion picture interests, including the German. They maintain that their property should be returned to the actual possession of their [Page 670] representatives with the privilege to export or dispose of this property in such manner as they deem appropriate. On the basis of the information available to the Department, it would appear that the Germans have been acting in an arbitrary and confiscatory manner with respect to American-owned film property in the occupied areas, and in view of the outstanding importance of the industry here we do not feel that we can allow this treatment to continue without presentation to the German Government of vigorous representations in the matter.
You are requested to take up this whole question informally with the appropriate authorities, and endeavor to work out with them some feasible and effective means of obtaining appropriate protection of the interests involved. If response which you deem satisfactory is not made within a reasonable time, report by telegram to the Department.
While we of course anticipate difficulty in getting any agreement on the part of the German authorities to permit our interests to continue functioning unmolested in the occupied areas, we should be alert to reserve our position and not admit any right on the part of the German authorities to confiscate without compensation property belonging to American nationals. If the German authorities are not prepared to let our motion picture interests continue to carry on business, we shall at least expect them to return all film prints improperly seized to the companies. If such protection is denied by the German authorities the sooner we know it here the better so that steps may be taken to file official representations against such treatment with the German authorities and prepare sufficient evidence of loss sustained to substantiate future claims.