“Rejected by the German Embassy”: The Directorate-General for Press and Radio under the Greek collaborationist governments and film censorship during the Occupation of Greece by the Axis powers (1941-1944) [i]
Censorship, as an attempt to control and restrict the expression of ideas and opinions in the public sphere, is a core structural element of any propaganda apparatus and is associated with power, especially in its totalitarian and authoritarian form. Greece has been no exception: a decisive moment in the history of its state-run censorship was the dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas. Until 1936, censorship of the public expression of opinions and ideas was mainly repressive. The dictatorship of Metaxas introduced and systematized the concept of preventive censorship and in 1936 set up an Under-Secretariat for Press and Tourism that acted as the main censorship agency. According to the respective law, the Under-Secretariat in question was founded with a view to enlightening public opinion and monitoring all public events, making sure that they conformed to national traditions and ideals. [ii] After setting up the Under-Secretariat as a propaganda and enlightenment mechanism,[iii] the dictatorship established a legal framework of preventive censorship with the aim of monitoring the press, publishing and film industries and the production of songs and theatre plays. [iv] The Under-Secretariat for Press and Tourism undertook Greece’s wartime propaganda activities in the years 1940-1941 and continued to operate after the Germans occupied the country, carrying out its usual censorship and propaganda activities between 1941 and 1944.
In this paper, I tried to explore the seemingly odd fact that the Greek censorship apparatus operated simultaneously with the respective mechanisms employed by the German and Italian overseers. This coexistence gives rise to questions about what was censored by the Under-Secretariat for Press; how the Under-Secretariat could exercise any censorship authority under a foreign military occupation; and finally, how it related to the German and Italian censorship and propaganda agencies. The current paper and associated research seek to answer the above questions, using as a key source the fragmented passages of the Directorate-General for Press and Radio’s archive for the years 1941-1944, as found in the General State Archives in Athens, and focusing on the case of feature film censorship, where the extant archival material is more extensive. [v] The research is still in its early stages, and this is the presentation of the first results.
Following the Occupation of Athens by the Wehrmacht on 27 April 1941, the Under-Secretariat for Press and Tourism continued to operate as usual. By virtue of a Legal Decree issued by the Tsolakoglou Government on 8 May 1941, the authority of the Under-Secretariat was transferred to the Directorate-General for Press and Radio that was set up as an Office under the President of the Greek collaborationist government. According to the Decree, the Directorate-General aimed, among other objectives, to enlighten public opinion on Greek affairs, to elevate the national and religious spirit of the Greeks and to develop the principles of the social regime under the conditions in Greece. [vi] After setting up the Directorate-General, the government updated the legal framework governing state-run preventive censorship in films, theatre, music and publications by virtue of Legal Decree 1108 of 1942 and Law 485 of 1943. [vii] In reality, those laws organized the censorship provisions and related procedures used by the Metaxas regime in a more systematic way, making no significant changes.
According to the above provisions, and focusing only on cinema, which is our case of interest, film distribution companies had to file an application to the People’s Enlightenment Directorate of the Directorate-General for Press and Radio, asking permission to screen a film and attaching the plot summary and script copies. Applications were then forwarded to the Film Monitoring Board that comprised senior officers of the People’s Enlightenment Directorate, Gendarmerie and Police Officers and a representative of the Pan-Hellenic Union of Cinemas. Based on the information contained in the applications and pre-screenings, the Board could prohibit a film’s release and cut certain scenes or dialogues on the grounds that a film or parts of it might have a “harmful” effect on the youth, disrupt public order, propagate subversive or anti-social theories, defame the country, undermine “healthy social traditions” and the interests of the Greek people, insult the Christian faith or lack artistic value. The Board was responsible for labelling a film as appropriate or inappropriate for minors, had the power to prohibit a film in certain regions of the country as well as the right to revoke a license, at any time, “for reasons of general character.” The legal framework for censorship described above gives an idea of what the contents of the Directorate-General for Press’ archive are, or rather should have been. The archive contains applications filed by film distribution companies asking for film release licenses, film release licenses issued by the competent People’s Enlightenment Directorate, film plot summaries, German release licenses, some books containing comments on the films for which release license applications were filed and protocol records kept by the Directorate-General for the years 1941-1944.
The Directorate-General for Press exercised its censorship authority in the cinema immediately after it was set up. According to the archival documents, the first release license in occupied Athens was issued by the People’s Enlightenment Directorate of the Directorate-General for Press on 14 May 1941 and concerned the screening of newsreels at Cineak. Up to December 1942, the People’s Enlightenment Directorate issued 1,867 film release licenses, including licenses for newsreels. [viii] With regards to the censors, those were mainly officers of the Directorate-General for Press, to a great extent the same persons that carried out censoring activities under the Metaxas regime, such as MP and journalist, Andromegas Konstantinidis, president of the Film Monitoring Board and Director of the People’s Enlightenment during the Οccupation, the writers Gerasimos Anninos and Kleon Paraschos, et al. [ix]
When describing the censorship activities of the Greek collaborationist governments, the most important factor is missing: the German and, up to September 1943, the Italian occupation forces. Evidently, the Greek censorship system could not operate independently of the censorship and propaganda apparatuses of the occupation forces, even though censorship under the Metaxas regime had the same targets as the respective German apparatus, such as fighting the Communist threat. The archive documents outline the role played mainly by the German censorship agencies and their relationship with the Greek censorship boards. For a film to be screened, a German release license was also needed in addition to the license issued by the Greek Directorate-General for Press. The standard procedure involved filing an application with the Directorate-General for Press first and then waiting for the German license to be issued, though not always in this order. Several times, licensing applications submitted by film companies to the Directorate-General for Press included hand-written notes with the German license number or phrases such as “prohibited” or “license was granted by the German Embassy.” The person responsible for film licensing on behalf of the Germans was Renau, and his name continuously crops up in the margins of applications. Often, the Greek censors invited officers like Renau from the German Embassy to watch film pre-screenings in order to decide whether to issue a license or not. This was often the case with French and American films that Greek censors thought were likely to offend the Germans, such as the French film “Paix sur le Rhin” mentioned below. A special role in the relationship between the German Embassy and the Greek Directorate-General for Press was played by the most well-known Greek National Socialist, the author Sitsa Karaiskaki. Karaiskaki had studied in Germany and, as a keen supporter of the Nazi regime, was appointed as a consultant at Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda. When Metaxas came to power she returned to Greece and was placed in charge of the Enlightenment of the National Youth Organization (EON), i.e. the youth organization of the regime. During the Occupation, Karaiskaki collaborated both with the propaganda services of the German Embassy and the Greek Directorate-General for Press.[x] According to the archive documents, Karaiskaki attended pre-screenings for licensing purposes.
Italian censorship is not well documented. The Italian words “approvato” or “autorizzato” appear on licensing applications mainly concerning Italian motion pictures, a sign that an Italian censorship agency had watched the film, whereas in other cases a film was marked as prohibited by the Italian censorship agency or as awaiting a film release license from the Italians. The document protocol of the Directorate-General for Press indicates that, in July 1941, the Italian authorities requested the appointment of Italian censorship officers to the Greek censorship boards, while in October the Italian Garrison Headquarters issued a document asking for an Italian lieutenant to be appointed to the Film Censorship Board. [xi]
Before I present specific film censorship cases, reference should be made to the kind of films screened at Greek cinemas during the Occupation. Before the war, the movies that dominated Greek cinemas were mostly American and French, with very few Greek productions. After the Occupation and the prohibition of English, American and French movies by the German authorities, Greek cinemas mainly showed German, Italian and Hungarian movies. Throughout the Occupation, very few Greek films were shot. [xii] As with other European countries occupied by the Axis powers, the Germans set up a Greek subsidiary of “UFA,” the German film production company (Universum Film-Aktien Gesellschaft), called “Hellas Films” in order to promote German cinematography, with the sole purpose of distributing German films in Greece. The Italians followed the same tactic by founding “Esperia,” a company distributing Italian films. It should be noted that, according to the archive documents, the Greek State confiscated “Esperia” and “Hellas Films” as hostile property after the war.
The above developments and the fact that cinemas, for example Pallas, had been turned into Soldatenkinos (Soldiers Cinemas), meant that Greek film distribution companies were left out. Moreover, as in other occupied European countries, cinemas were obliged to show German newsreels and Kulturfilme (cultural films) that represented the cutting edge of Nazi cinematic propaganda by promoting German military prowess and National Socialist ideals. [xiii] For example, one of the first movies screened in the Athenian cinemas in May 1941 was “Krieg in Western” (Greek title: War on the Western Front), a film that showed off German military prowess, making all too clear the consequences that would befall anyone who wished to challenge that power. The same year also saw the release of "Jud Süß” (Süss the Jew; Greek title: Joseph the Jew), a film encapsulating the Nazi anti-Semitic ideology. [xiv]
As mentioned earlier, the German Οccupation authorities had banned all films originating from countries that had been at war with Germany. English films were altogether excluded, whereas films that simply presented England or the English were either prohibited or censored. For example, “The Ghost Train” (Greek title: The Ghost is Travelling), a film released in June 1941 in the presence of Renau was banned because it was English and not American.[xv] It should be noted that it is extremely difficult to identify films when the only information available is the rendering of the original title in Greek, as is often the case with the applications found in the archive. An image of London was cut from “Ein idealer Gatte” (An Ideal Husband), a 1935 German comedy, along with the name of the British writer Oscar Wilde who had written the original play; the phrase “with a Rolls Royce” was cut from the American film “The Jazz Girl” (Greek title: Mickey Mouse Girl) because it referred to the famous British automobile maker; and the German film “Die göttliche Jette”(The Divine Song) was banned altogether because it featured officers of the British Army. [xvi] Even the German anti-British propaganda film “Der Fuchs von Glenarvon” (The Fox of Glenarvon; Greek title: The Revolution) was prohibited by the German Embassy after the first week of screening because it was about the Irish struggles for independence from the British. [xvii]
For a certain period, American and French films appeared in Greek cinema halls but were banned by order of the German Garrison Headquarters in November 1941, though gradually made their return to Greek cinemas by 1943 according to the archive documents. [xviii] Even during their screening period, American and French films underwent strict censorship, with the German Embassy making requests to the Directorate-General for Press asking for lists of the approved French and American movies. Censorship applied mainly to the films featuring the American Army or referring to American or French patriotism. For example, “Kentucky,” an American film[xix] about the American Civil War was banned by the German Embassy; the same happened with the American film entitled in Greek “SOS Underwater War” (probably “SOS Coast Guard”) because it featured the activities of the American naval forces. Also, in late May 1941 a Greek censor cut certain scenes from the American newsreels −probably based on related instructions− that featured the American Army marching, the American flag and the French National Anthem. In December 1941, a license was issued to screen UFA’s newsreels, without however the scenes that showed the celebrations for the anniversary of the Discovery of the America [xx] –December 1941 was the time when Germany declared war on the USA.
The censorship agencies of both Greece and the occupation forces banned films, scenes or phrases that related to uprisings and resistance against the authoritative power or contained references to freedom and rights. This type of censorship was rather natural for a country under military occupation and was common practice for the Greek censorship agencies that used the same reasons to ban films during the Metaxas dictatorship. For example, in May 1942 the Italian censorship agency prohibited the Italian film “Regina della Scala” (The Opera Queen) because it contained scenes of a revolution, whereas Karaiskaki and Renau cut the German film “Tanz auf dem Vulkan” (Dance on the Volcano) towards the end of July 1941 because it featured too many revolutionary scenes. [xxi] Greek authorities, on the other hand, issued a license for the French film “Pièges” (Traps) after cutting the phrase “give us the name of the leader of the revolution in Greece” and cut a scene showing the Statue of Liberty from an American movie.[xxii] Along the same lines, the phrases “I would like to know what Rome’s plans are –will they try to deprive us of all traces of freedom” and “if his answer is ‘no’ we will accuse him of disobedience against the State of Rome before Pilate– if his answer is ‘yes’, the people will think of him as a friend of Rome and an enemy of Jewish freedom” were cut from the script of the French film “Golgotha.”[xxiii]
A common ground shared between the Greek and German censorship mechanisms and attitudes was anti-communism and the effort to defend the social regime. Films promoting communist ideology, phrases and scenes that were suggestive of social injustice or described the squalid living conditions of the working class were either banned or censored. According to the extant archive information, the American film “Black Fury” was banned because it contained, in the phrasing of the document, too many communist scenes. The film was about the struggles of Eastern European refugee miners in the USA against the practices of a mining company, with the Greek and German censors banning the film, among other reasons, because it contained the “Polish vernacular spoken by various Polish refugee rioters.” The phrases “a communist for an aristocrat” and “I unload what other people eat” were erased from other American films. [xxiv] Greek censors were stricter in banning films with communist content, with this category including virtually all films referring to Russia even if the plot concerned pre-revolutionary Russia or was overtly anti-Bolshevik. For example, the Hungarian film “Toprini Nász” (Greek title: Bloody Balalaika) managed to gain the Greek censorship board’s approval despite, as they mentioned, its Russian-Tsarist content. In the opinion of the German Embassy, the film was totally harmless. Another Hungarian film, “Café Moszkva” (Café Moscow), set on the warfront between Russia and Austria-Hungary during World War I, was banned due to its “Russian content.”[xxv] Along the same lines, Renau cut a scene from the UFA short music film “Abends in Berlin” (Greek title: A night in Metropol) showing a Russian Cossack dance. [xxvi] Of particular interest was the stance of the Greek and German censors concerning the potential release of the German propaganda film “Weisse Sklaven” (White Slaves) or “Panzerkreuzer Sebastopol” (Battleship Sevastopol). The anti-Soviet propaganda film was the German response to the Soviet film “Battleship Potemkin” and featured the attempts of a battleship crew to counter the attacks of Sevastopol revolutionaries that participated in a crescendo of violence and plundering. According to the Greek censors, the movie had to be prohibited because it contained “violent communist scenes,” but the German Embassy insisted on releasing the film by adding the phrase “Europe shall revenge the Bolshevik brutalities.” [xxvii] It should be noted that in the archive ledger containing information about licensed or banned films there is an entry concerning the Soviet propaganda film “Mannerheim Line,” which was about the Soviet invasion of Finland and was withdrawn on 14 June 1941 by the Soviet Embassy in Athens [xxviii] –it should be noted that the German invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June.
Another category of banned or censored films involved Jewish contributors, for example all films made by the Marx brothers, a team of American comedians, or films featuring opponents of the Nazi regime in Germany such as Marlene Dietrich, as well as those with anti-militarist or anti-Nazi content such as “All quiet on the Western Front” or “Confessions of a Nazi Spy.”[xxix] In Greece, according to the extant archival documents, Renau and Greek censors banned the 1934 German film “Lake of the Ladies” on the grounds that “the script was written by the unwelcome Jewish author Vicki Baum and featured a number of unwelcome Jewish actors.” Moreover, Karaiskaki and Renau prohibited the French film “Le Puritain” (The Puritan; Greek title: Hunting Down Sin) as a Jewish film, because it showed the murder of a woman of lax morals by a virtuous journalist in love. [xxx] The French film “Golgotha” was given a license, however without the closing lines that mentioned the French film director, the producer and the actors, probably because the director Julien Duvivier and the actor Jean Gabin had fled to the USA after the German Οccupation of Paris. [xxxi] In May 1941, Greek censors were to decide whether they would issue a license for the 1938 French film “Paix sur le Rhin” (Peace on the Rhine). Realizing the film’s anti-militarist content from its title and summary plot and fearing that the film would offend Germany, they proposed a pre-screening for the plenary session of the film monitoring board and a representative of the German Embassy, who finally prohibited the film. [xxxii]
The major part of censored films found in the archive concerns erotic scenes cut by the censors to protect the dominant moral standards in Greece. In May 1941, a license was issued for a film with the Greek title “Seat 47” as inappropriate for minors banning the phrases “an army of horned lovers,” “in half an hour you will be mine,” “wide couch” as well as a love scene between a mother-in-law and a son-in-law. [xxxiii] Along similar lines, Greek censors were not keen to issue a release license for the 1933 Greek film “O Kakos o Dromos” (Immoral Path), because they considered its plot as immoral and offensive to Greek moral standards. The film features a young woman who became a prostitute and is killed by her brother to “clear” the family’s name.[xxxiv]
The country’s liberation from German Οccupation in October 1944 did not bring any significant change in the film censorship practices of the Greek State agencies, apart from the fact that the German censors were no longer involved. The Directorate-General for Press operated with the same staff, and the danger of communism and the need to defend the bourgeois social system from anarchist and subversive theories –the main cooperation framework shared between the Greek collaborationist governments and the German occupation forces– continued to be the main grounds for banning or censoring a film in Greece after the war, mainly during the years of the Civil War and the dictatorship of 1967-74. Besides, it was no accident that the laws about preventive censorship by the Greek collaborationist governments became the main legal framework for state-run preventive and repressive censorship until 1974. [xxxv]
[i] The article was originally published in Iro Katsaridou, Annie Kontogiorgi, Ioannis Motsianos (eds.), The Occupier’s Gaze. Athens in the photographs of the German soldiers, 1941-1944 , One-Day Conference Proceedings, (Athens: Directorate of Modern Cultural Heritage, 2020), 150-164.
[ii] Emergency Law 45/1936 “Εstablishing the Under-Secretariat for Press and Tourism,” Official Government Gazette, Issue Α΄/379/31.8.1936.
[iii] For the propaganda of the Metaxas regime see, for example, Βαγγέλης Αγγελής, Γιατί χαίρεται ο κόσμος και χαμογελάει, πατέρα…: Μαθήματα εθνικής αγωγής και νεολαιίστικη προπαγάνδα στα χρόνια της μεταξικής δικτατορίας [Vangelis Angelis, Why are people happy and smiling, father…: Lessons of national education and youth propaganda in the years of the Metaxas Dictatorship] (Athens: Bibliorama, 2006), 37-80.
[iv] See Γιάννης Γκλαβίνας, «Το προληπτικό ψαλίδι του κράτους» [Yannis Glavinas, Preventive state censorship], Efimerida ton Sintakton, 10 April 2016, https://www.efsyn.gr/themata/fantasma-tis-istorias/65142_proliptiko-psalidi-toy-kratoys (accessed August 5, 2019). For the legal framework and the preventive censorship mechanism of the state.
[v] General State Archives (GSA), Central Service (CS), Archive of the General Secretariat for Press and Information (GSPI Archive). The Under-Secretariat for Press and Tourism was abolished in 1951 and its responsibilities were transferred to the Directorate-General for Press and Information, Ministry to the Prime Minister. The Directorate-General was named General Secretariat for Press and Information in 1970 and was directly accountable to the Prime Minister, whereas in 1974 it became part of the Ministry to the Prime Minister.
[vi] Legislative Decree 22/1941 “Complementing and amending Legislative Act 1,” Official Government Gazette, Issue Α΄/161/10.5.1941.
[vii] Legislative Decree 1108/1942 “Amending, complementing and codifying the provisions about monitoring theatre plays, films, gramophone records and books,” Official Gazette, Issue Α΄/48/6.3.1942 and Law 267/1943 “Complementing and amending the provisions concerning Press and the Radio,” Official Government Gazette, Issue Α΄/267/16.8.1943.
[viii] Information concerning the first license issued after the German Occupation and all licenses issued between May 1941-1942 have been taken from the GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον εκδόσεως αδειών κινηματογραφικών ταινιών 1941-1942” [Film licensing book 1941-1942].
[ix] Ιωάννης Γ. Κορωνάκης, Η Πολιτεία της 4ης Αυγούστου: Φως εις μίαν πλαστογραφημένην περίοδον της ιστορίας μας [Ioannis G. Koronakis, The State of August, 4th: Light shed on the distorted history of that period of our history] (Athens, 1950), 43 and GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book] and “Βιβλίον εκδόσεως αδειών κινηματογραφικών ταινιών 1941-1942" [Film licensing book 1941-1942], with the names of the censors of the Greek authorities.
[x] In 1944, Sitsa Karaiskaki fled to Germany following the German troops and settled initially in Vienna as a member of the Greek collaborationist government of Hector Tsironikos. She was sentenced three times to death in absentia by the Special Court for Collaborators in Athens, for collaborating with the Germans. In 1963, after the offences were statute-barred and the prosecution was discontinued, she returned to Greece where she lived until her death. For Sitsa Karaiskaki, see GSA, CS, Athens Special Court for Collaborators, minutes No. 495 and 496, dated 18 August 1945.
[xi] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 276, “Ευρετήριον Πρωτοκόλλου, Υφυπουργείον Τύπου & Τουρισμού” [Protocol Index, Under-Secretariat for Press & Tourism”].
[xii] See Eirini Sifaki, “Cinema Goes to War: The German Film Policy in Greece during the Occupation, 1941-44,” in Cinema and the Swastika: The international Expansion of Third Reich Cinema, eds. Roel Vande Winkel & David Welch (Basingstoke UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 148-150 for the type of films screened in Greek cinemas during the Occupation. For English, American and some French films prohibited by the Nazi authorities also in other European countries see, for example, for France, Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), 249 and for Belgium, Roel Vande Winkel, “German Influence on Belgian Cinema, 1933-1945: From Low-Profile Presence to Downright Colonisation,” in Cinema and the Swastika, 77-78.
[xiii] See Sifaki, “Cinema,” 148-158 for the German film policy in Greece during the German Occupation. For the German film policy in the occupied countries in general, see Klaus Kreimeier, The UFA story: a history of Germany’s greatest film company, 1918-1945 , trans. Robert & Rita Kimber (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 331-340.
[xiv] For the release licenses of the two films, see GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Ελληνική Κινηματογραφική Ένωσις” [Greek Cinema Union]. For their role in Nazi propaganda, see David Welch, The Third Reich: Politics and Propaganda (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 122 and Kreimeier, The UFA story, 275, 306. For their release in Greece, see Sifaki, “Cinema,” 153. Information concerning German films and their plot summaries contained in the article were taken from the Filmportal.de database, Deutsches Filminstitut Film-museum, accessed August 5, 2019, https://www.filmportal.de/en/movies.
[xv] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xvi] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book] and loose film licenses.
[xvii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Ελληνική Κινηματογραφική Ένωσις” [Greek Cinema Union] and Fergal Lenehan, “A land and A People of Extremes - Ireland and the Irish in German Cinema,” Irish Studies Review 20, no. 1, (February 2012): 25-45.
[xviii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 276, “Ευρετήριον Πρωτοκόλλου, Υφυπουργείον Τύπου & Τουρισμού” [Protocol Index, Under-Secretariat for Press & Tourism].
[xix] Information on American films and their plot summaries contained in the paper were taken from the American Film Institute database, AFI catalogue of feature films: The first 100 years 1893-1993, accessed August 5, 2019, https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/Showcase.
[xx] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Ελληνική Κινηματογραφική Ένωσις” [Greek Cinema Union] and “Σκούρας” [Skouras] and box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xxi] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Φοίβος” [Phoebus] and box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book]. Identification of the film was not possible.
[xxii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Αμολοχίτης-Βουλγαρίδης” [Amolochitis-Voulgaridis] and box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book]. Information on French films and their plot summaries contained in the article were taken from the Unifrance database, accessed August 5, 2019, https://en.unifrance.org/.
[xxiii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, loose film licenses.
[xxiv] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xxv] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book]. Information on Hungarian films contained in the article was taken from the website of the Hungarian National Film Archive, accessed August 5, 2019, https://filmarchiv.hu/en/repository/databases.
[xxvi] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Πάνας – Κουρουνιώτης – Άστυ” [Panas – Kourouniotis – Asti].
[xxvii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xxviii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xxix] Jonathan Green – Nicholas J. Karolides, Encyclopedia of Censorship (New York: Facts on File, 2005), 10-12. Spotts, The Shameful Peace, 249. Vande Winkel, “German influence,” 78 and American Film Institute, accessed August 5, 2019, https://catalog.afi.com/Film/908-CONFESSIONS-OFANAZISPY .
[xxx] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book]. Vicky Baum had sought refuge in the USA, see Peter Schrag, The World of Aufbau: Hitler’s refugees in America (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), 61-62 and Anthony Heilbut, Exiled in Paradise: German Refugee Artists and Intellectuals in America from the 1930s to the Present (New York: Viking Press, 1983).
[xxxi] Spotts, The Shameful Peace, 249.
[xxxii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 452, file “Φοίβος” [Phoebus] and box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xxxiii] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book].
[xxxiv] GSA, CS, GSPI Archive, box 561, “Βιβλίον Ελέγχου Κινηματογραφικών Ταινιών” [Film Monitoring Book]. For information on Greek films contained in the paper, see the website of the Greek Film Archive Foundation, accessed August 5, 2019. http://www.tainiothiki.gr/v2/index/collection/.
[xxxv] For the operation of the Greek State censorship system and the respective legal framework in the years 1944 1974, see, for example, Γκλαβίνας, «Το προληπτικό ψαλίδι» [Glavinas, Preventive state censorship], and Πηνελόπη Πετσίνη και Δημήτρης Χριστόπουλος, Λεξικό λογοκρισίας στην Ελλάδα: Καχεκτική δημοκρατία, δικτατορία, μεταπολίτευση [Penelope Petsini and Dimitris Christopoulos, The Dictionary of Censorship in Greece: Weak Democracy, Dictatorship, Regime Change] (Athens: Kastaniotis, 2018).