The Hollywood Blacklist Myth : Johannes Eisler, spy

Johannes Eisler, spy

Johannes Eisler’s brother, Gerhart, was a Communist journalist and his sister, Elfriede, was a leader of the German Communist Party in the mid-1920s. At age 14 Eisler joined a socialist youth group (His sister later moved to the US turned into an anti-communist, writing books against her former political affiliation, and even testifying against her brothers before the House Un-American Activities Committee.)

Eisler arrived in the US in 1938. B y the early 1940s he was composing with Bertolt Brecht in Hollywood as well as music for various documentary films and for eight Hollywood film scores, two of which — Hangmen Also Die! and None but the Lonely Heart — were nominated for Oscars in 1944 and 1945. From 1927 to the end of his life, Eisler wrote the music for 40 films, making film music the largest part of his compositions after vocal music for chorus and/or solo voices.

From 1943 onwards, the FBI would keep Eisler under almost total surveillance as his over-six-hundred-page FBI file attests. In 1946, Eisler and his brother Gerhart, a functionary of the KPD, who had been in America since 1941 were the subject of a furious press campaign. Eisler was called before the Committee to find that he had been denounced by none other than his own sister Elfriede, now using the name Ruth Fischer. She also began taking out full-page ads in newspapers across the country accusing her brother Gerhart of having murdered Soviet politician Nikolai Bukharin and of being a nuclear spy for the Soviet Union.

Eisler was interviewed twice by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, who suspected him to be the chief Soviet agent in Hollywood. Perhaps the most powerful moment of Eisler’s testimony was when he faced repeated questioning as to whether he was officially a Communist Party member. He stated passionately that “The Communists have sacrificed so much and fought so heroically, I would be a swindler if I called myself a Communist, I have no right to say this, the Communist underground workers in every country, they are heroes! I am not a hero I am a composer.”

Charlie Chaplin, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein—organized benefit concerts to raise money for his defense fund, but he was deported early in 1948. He died in 1963, however was never Blacklisted ad continued to sell his works until 1961.

1962Esther (TV Movie)

1962The Life of Galileo (TV Movie)

1961Aktion J (Documentary)

1961Schweyk im zweiten Weltkrieg (TV Movie)

1960Herr Puntila and His Servant Matti

1960The Opportunists

1958Geschwader Fledermaus

1957Katzgraben

1957The Crucible

1956Night and Fog (Documentary short)

1955Bel Ami

1955Bel-Ami Der Frauenheld von Paris

1954Schicksal am Lenkrad (as Hans Eisler)

1952Frauenschicksale

1952Krízová trojka

1951Wilhelm Pieck - Das Leben unseres Präsidenten (Documentary)

1950Der Rat der Götter

1949Our Daily Bread

The problems we have with the Hollywood left

The problem we have with the Hollywood left is it's the notion that accepting differences is no longer good enough, you have to be complicit in them. The problem we have with the Hollywood left it's the notion that any differing opinion is a threat to your very way of existence but never the opposite. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is the blatant hypocrisy of claiming to care about democracy well on abashedly striving to take control of every step of the political process. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is the notion that any idea or opinion outside of your own ideology is morally repugnant and therefore needs to be silenced. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is the notion that your goals must be achieved using everyone resources regardless on whether they agree. The problem we have with the Hollywood left is their supporting of rights situationally when convenient and the outright rejection of those rights when it's in it's the inconvenient for you. The problem we have with the Hollywood left isthat somehow you know what's best for me enough to allow the government to make that choice for me The problem we have with the Hollywood left it's their failure to see the irony in labeling anyone different than yourself as an extremist or a fundamentalist. Originally written by Jason Blood. Edited for this page.

Just because someone’s name appeared in Red Channels, that doesn’t mean they were blacklisted. It just means there name appeared in Red Channels.

Just because a person said they were blacklisted doesn’t mean they were. Many people in Hollywood have lied about being blacklisted over the years.

If a person was actually blacklisted…and not many were actually blacklisted….it was the studios and TV sponsors who blacklisted them. Not the United States federal government.

If a person claims the blacklist ruined their career, they should be able to prove they had a career before the blacklist.

For the most part, front organizations assumed the character of either a mass or membership organization or a paper organization. Both solicited and used names of prominent persons. Literally hundreds of groups and organizations have either been infiltrated or organized primarily to accomplish the purposes of promoting the interests of the Soviet Union in the United States, the promotion of Soviet war and peace aims, the exploitation of Negroes in the United States, work among foreign-language groups, and to secure a favorable viewpoint toward the Communists in domestic, political, social, and economic issues. The first requisite for front organizations is an idealistic sounding title. Hundreds of such organizations have come into being and have gone out of existence when their true purposes have become known or exposed while others with high-sounding names are continually springing up. J. Edgar Hoover on the subject of Communist front organizations. March 26, 1947