840.4061 Motion Pictures/123

The American Embassy in Germany to the German Ministry for Foreign Affairs 31

No. 1825

The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the German Reich and with reference to the Ministry’s Note (No. Kult K 11425) of December 9, 1940, stating that the competent internal authorities had been requested to give consideration to the question of the protection of American film interests in countries under German military occupation which [Page 621] was the subject of the Embassy’s Note No. 1675 of November 15, 1940,32 has the honor to inquire whether the competent internal authorities have now completed their examination of the matter and whether steps have been taken to enable American film distributing agencies to resume operations in the occupied areas, to recover their property which had been attached, and to re-obtain possession of the motion picture films which had been seized.

In the meantime the Embassy has been informed that the German authorities in Amsterdam, in addition to having previously locked the vaults containing the films belonging to two American companies on November 29, 1940, locked the vault containing the films of another American company, Warner Brothers Pictures Corporation of New York, and took possession of the keys thereto. This was done in spite of the fact that the Embassy in its Note No. 1470 of September 13, 1940, informed the Ministry that positive prints of 355 features, 354 trailers, and 702 shorts in the possession of that company’s subsidiary in the Netherlands, Warner Brothers First National Pictures, N. V., 778 Keizersgracht, Amsterdam, are the property of the American parent company, Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated, of New York. The Embassy also invites the attention of the Ministry to the fact that one of the two companies whose vaults in Amsterdam containing American owned films were previously sealed by the German authorities is the N. V. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film Maatschappij, Damrak 49, Amsterdam, and that this action was taken although in its Note No. 753 of January 11, 1940, the Embassy informed the Ministry that all negatives and positive prints of motion pictures marked with the copyrighted trade mark “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” are the property of the American company Loew’s Incorporated. Consequently, the action of the German authorities in seizing the above mentioned American owned negatives and positive prints, the American nature of which had been duly notified to the Ministry, would appear to be in arbitrary disregard of American property rights.

In view of the foregoing and in view of the considerations set forth in the Embassy’s Note No. 1675 of November 15, 1940, the Embassy is confident that the Ministry will promptly cause to be issued the necessary permits for American film distributing agencies in the occupied areas to resume operations and cause to have released to them their property which has been attached as well as to have returned to them the motion picture films which have been seized.

  1. Copy transmitted to the Department by the Chargé in Germany in his despatch No. 4266, January 21, 1941; received February 11.
  2. For substance of note No. 1675, see telegram No. 4515, October 30, 1940, 7 p.m., from the Chargé in Germany, Foreign Relations, 1940, vol. ii, p. 670.