When Hitler Tried to Take Over Hollywood

May 21, 2023

6 min read

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Leon Lewis and his network of spies saved the Jews of LA and prevented a Nazi takeover in America.

In 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, solidifying his terrifying rise to power. Pretty soon, he would initiate his plan to take over Europe and exterminate its Jews.

While Hitler and the Nazis were busy in Europe, they were also hiding out in Los Angeles and attempting to break into Hollywood – the biggest propaganda machine in the world. Their scheme? To murder 24 prominent Hollywood figures like Charlie Chaplin, Al Jolson, and Louis B. Mayer, sabotage military operations along the West Coast, and go around Boyle Heights, the Jewish neighborhood, and gun down as many Jews as they could.

All of this is documented in “Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America,” a fascinating book by Steven J. Ross. The author is a professor of history at the University of Southern California and director of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life.

“Hitler in Los Angeles” follows Leon Lewis, an attorney the Nazis called “the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles.” He ran a spy operation consisting of military veterans and their wives who infiltrated the Nazi groups and foiled their devious plans.

Lewis, who served as the first national executive secretary of the Anti-Defamation League, devoted his life to protecting the Jewish people. When Hitler came to power, people didn’t take it seriously – but Lewis knew that he was a dangerous man and the Jews could not stand idly by.

“Many Americans viewed Hitler and his followers either as thugs or fools,” writes Ross. “They assumed that the Nazi leader’s virulent anti-Semitism was a passing phase, and once in office he would moderate his policies toward the nation’s Jews. But Lewis realized Hitler was using violence to get into power, and once in office, Nazi leaders would likely eliminate all political opposition.”

Leon Lewis receiving the Americanism Award from American Legion, in June 1939. (USC Libraries Special Collections)

Soon, activist Joseph Roos, a Vienna native who later left Germany for the United States, joined Lewis to assist him with his campaign to rid of the Nazis in LA. In the past Roos had spied on Nazis in Chicago, where he worked as a journalist at the Chicago Herald-Examiner.

“I did not know when I arrived in Chicago in January 1927 that three years earlier the first Nazi organization in the United States had been started in Chicago bearing the name Teutonia and was spreading ‘Nazi propaganda poison’ [among the city’s German population],” Roos wrote in his autobiography.

Along with Lewis and Roos, “Hitler in Los Angeles” weaves in other major players, like Georg Gyssling, a German consul and Nazi who infiltrated Los Angeles high society, befriended the media, and spied on the activities of the movie studios. At one point, he convinced Columbia studio heads to change the way they portrayed a German submarine captain in the movie “Below the Sea” (1933).

A gathering of Nazi supporters in Los Angeles, September 1937

“When it came to the Jews who ran the city’s movie studios, there was no division of opinion about Georg Gyssling,” writes Ross. “He was universally hated and considered far more dangerous to their business fortunes than the Nazis belonging to the Friends of New Germany or their Silver Shirt allies. For the Jewish moguls, Gyssling was the most dangerous Nazi in Los Angeles.”

So, why did the studio heads give into Gyssling? It was all about the money, especially following the Great Depression.

Nazi symbols could be spotted all over downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s. Here, a swastika hangs above the street outside a furniture store on Broadway. (Photo/Courtesy of Steve Ross)

“Studios were first and foremost in the moneymaking business, not the consciousness-raising business,” writes Ross. “However much they may have hated the German consul and the Hitler regime, the moguls had to cooperate with both if they wished to remain in the German market, where studios had more theaters than anywhere on the continent. After complying with Gyssling, Hollywood studios sold sixty-five films to Germany in 1933, as compared to fifty-four in 1932.”

In an interesting twist, it turned out that Gyssling actually hated Hitler, as his daughter recalled later on. Apparently, he had spied for the U.S. as well, and he was not known for hating Jews.

“Gyssling was a Nazi, but not an anti-Semite,” writes Ross. “He made statements in the press about the fine treatment of Jews in Germany that he knew were false. Yet during his eight-year tenure in Los Angeles, he never uttered an anti-Semitic statement to reporters; nor did Leon Lewis’s operatives ever suggest that the consul was an anti-Semite.”

Joseph Roos

This is just one of the many twists and turns in “Hitler in Los Angeles”. The page-turner has many moments where you ask yourself, “How could this happen?” For instance, how could the U.S. government fail to monitor the Nazis who were trying to take over their military operations? Answer: They were too busy monitoring the Communists in America instead.

Or: How could Hollywood be so influenced by the Nazis? Answer: They cared more about money than the safety of the Jewish people.

In the end, Lewis, Roos, and their network of spies saved the military operations along the West Coast, Hollywood, and the Jews of LA. Lewis and Roos worked closely with the U.S. attorney general’s office to ensure that none of the indicted Nazis would escape sentencing. Their efforts led to Hermann Schwinn and Hans Diebel being sent to prison and tried for sedition. Gyssling was cleared of any wrongdoing because, like his daughter said, he despised working for Hitler. He wanted the war to end as quickly as possible in actuality.

Georg Gyssling

Nine years after the war ended, Lewis suffered a fatal heart attack while he was driving on the Pacific Coast Highway, close to his home. He was only 65 years old, but he left behind a legacy that inspires other Jewish activists today.

“Hitler in Los Angeles” is a must-read for history buffs, as well as anyone interested in Hollywood. It gives a glimpse into the past, showing us the inspiring bravery of Jewish individuals like Lewis and Roos who stepped up to the plate at a time when no one else would. We need more heroes like them.

As Ross writes, “Lewis, Roos, and their network of spies refused to sit back and allow their city and nation to be threatened by hate groups. They showed us through their actions that when a government fails to stem the rise of extremists bent on violence, it is up to every citizen to protect the lives of every American, no matter their race or religion.”

He continued, “There can be no better way to honor Leon Lewis than to remember his postwar words. Only in a ‘unified America,’ he said, could the nation and its citizens achieve the true ‘realization of the American democratic ideal.’”

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