# was Walt Disney a nazi and an antisemite **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 10, 2002, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747 "2002-04-10T00:48:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/21 "2002-04-10T12:42:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes, I emailed them - the response was ‘we made only anti-Nazi cartoons’. I didn’t mention ‘cartoon’ - I believe the film in question was live-action, so their statement was not, technically, a lie. Disney’s first live-action film was “Treasure Island” in 1950. He combined live action and animation in “The Reluctant Dragon” in 1941. So it was impossible for Disney to have created a live-action pro-Nazi film before 1941, and I seriously doubt “The Reluctant Dragon” is what you have in mind. If you have a cite, let’s hear it. Otherwise, it’s just a nasty rumor. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/22 "2002-04-10T13:20:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Johnny L.A. \* > \*\*FWIW, I found this: > Der Fuhrer’s Face [VHS] > (Long out-of-print Disney cartoon circa World War II, in which Donald Duck has a dream about joining the Nazi party. The Germans are portrayed as utter buffoons, and though controversial and potentially offensive, there are a number of extremely funny moments. The cartoon ends with Donald waking up in his bed, turning to the viewer, and proudly announcing “Boy oh boy, I sure am glad I’m a citizen of the United States of America!” Super rare. Video quality is fair, but far from excellent. Approx. 10-15 mins.) > \*\* I’ve seen “Der Fuhrer’s Face”. It’s a very well done anti-Nazi cartoon and some of the images are surreal (there are swastikas everywhere). The only people shown as buffons are _Nazis_ (IIRC). Why won’t Disney let it be shown? The only people it could “potentially offend” are Nazis. And who cares if they’re offended? Anyone have any insights on who, exactly, DisneyCo is trying to not offend? Fenris ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/23 "2002-04-10T13:38:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > \*\* > > I’ve seen “Der Fuhrer’s Face”. It’s a very well done anti-Nazi cartoon and some of the images are surreal (there are swastikas everywhere). > > The only people shown as buffons are _Nazis_ (IIRC). Why won’t Disney let it be shown? The only people it could “potentially offend” are Nazis. And who cares if they’re offended? Anyone have any insights on who, exactly, DisneyCo is trying to not offend? > > Fenris \*\* They’re afraid someone will take the pictures of Donald in a Nazi uniform out of context. Someone might see the image without seeing the cartoon and think the cartoon is in favor of Naziism. So Disney finds it easier to avoid the conflict and bad press, knowing that their answer – that it’s an anti-Nazi film – will get buried. “Der Fuhrer’s Face” is considered one of the 50 greatest cartoons of all time, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/24 "2002-04-10T14:10:11Z")
My WAG? DisneyCo doesn’t want to risk annoying the contemporary German market. They would get relatively little money from releasing it, while even a tiny reduction in German sales could amount to big money. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/25 "2002-04-10T15:20:33Z")
Maybe Disney _really is_ pro-Nazi, and they’re keeping the film out of release so that they won’t damage their Cause. (just kidding.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/26 "2002-04-10T18:05:34Z")
By current German law, _Der Fuhrer’s Face_ couldn’t even be shown in Germany; displays of swastikas are considered serious constitutional offences. Incident to this, the _Star Trek_ episode _Patterns of Force_ is also verboten. I have to agree with **RealityChuck**. As soon as this cartoon is released on video or DVD, the internet will be peppered with stills of a goose-stepping Donald. Who needs the headaches? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/27 "2002-04-10T19:29:28Z")
There have certainly been persistant rumors that Disney was anti-Semitic. How true they are I don’t know. “Who in Hell: A Guide to the Whole Damned Bunch,” by Sean Kelly and Rosemary Rogers, a Who’s-Who for the Nether Regions, puts Disney in Hell for “Sowing Discord:” > [@](#): > > \*\* > Politically, Walt was a pro-fascist - for example, he was a guest of Georg Gyssling, the Nazi consul general in Hollywood, at the 1940 party there in honor of an SS general and personal representative of Adolf Hitler. In the 1950’s, Walt testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that he suspected communist cartoonists in his studio were trying to use his beloved Mickey to spread Red propaganda. Disney always refused to hire Semites, and when one of his executives, David Swift, left to join Columbia, Disney bade farewell in a stage Jewish accent, thus: “OK, Davy Boy. Off you go to work with those Jews.”\*\* ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/28 "2002-04-10T19:36:33Z")
Took me a while to remember where I saw this, as it’s a non-Disney related book, but Eric Schlosser’s _Fast Food Nation_ spends some time talking about the development of DisneyLand and Aneheim in general during the 40’s and 50’s. (Without getting into too much detail it ties in with Ray Kroc/Carl Karcher and the development of McDonalds/Carl’s Jr.) According to Schloesser, Disney hired many former Nazi party members, including Wernher von Braun, who at the time was > [@](#): > > the US Army’s leading rocket scientist. He had served in the same capacity for the German army during WWII. He had been an early and enthusiastic member of the Nazi party, as well as a major in the SS. Schlosser goes on to state that at least 20,000 slave laborers died in factories under his command. Another key advisor for Tomorrowland (Heinz Haber) > [@](#): > > spent much of WWII conducting research on high-speed, high-altitude flight for the Luftwaffe Institute for Avation Medicine. In order to assess the risks faced by German air force pilots, the institute performed experiments on hundreds of inmates at the Dachau concentration camp near Munich. The inmates who survived these experiments were usually killed and then dissected. Both hosted and appeared in Disney films and broadcasts such as “Our Friend the Atom.” Schlosser cites several books including: _Werner von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon_ - Dennis Piszkiewicz _The Paperclip Conspiricy: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists_ - Tom Bower _Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip_ - Linda Hunt. While this in no way proves Disney was an anti-Semite or Nazi, it certainly seems to imply that he was willing to turn a blind eye to what they did when it came to getting his empire off the ground. However, since both also worked for the US Army and Air Force, you have to wonder: What the hell? Apparently NOBODY had a problem with these guys at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/29 "2002-04-10T19:49:30Z")
Interesting this should come up just now, as I recently came across _Der Fuhrer’s Face_ for download. It’s a whopping 70-plug megs, so only fast connections should attempt it. It’s at… er…well, I can’t link there, the site has stuff on it that doesn’t comply with board policy. They probably wouldn’t even want me naming it here. How about, it rhymes with “Tile Troject”. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/30 "2002-04-10T19:55:07Z")
“Vunce rockets go up, Who cares vhere dey come down? Zat’s not my department! Says Werner von Braun” -Tom Lehrer, “Werner von Braun,” 1965 ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/31 "2002-04-10T20:20:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*…a goose-stepping Donald. \*\* BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! ---
**Author:** ![Cap\_n\_Crude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Cap\_n\_Crude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cap_n_Crude)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/32 "2002-04-10T20:26:01Z")
My family has been in the film business for most of the 20th century. Friends of the family worked for Disney while Walt was still alive. We’re all jewish. There are plenty of verifiable stories from my elders of Disney management being reluctant to hire jews, or holding back the careers of those who worked there. Hearsay attributes this directly to Walt himself and something he said to his executives. Alas, I don’t have the story myself, but said quote was relayed to an unimpeachable source by one of these execs during the reign of Walt. I know that none of what I’ve said counts as any sort of useful evidence, and I’m aware that “I know what I know” isn’t proof either. I’m just adding to the pile of circumstance that makes Walt Disney likely to have been an anti-semite. However, there’s nothing in any of what I heard that suggests Walt was a Nazi sympathizer. From what I recall, he didn’t like the Nazis at all, and wasn’t the sort of anti-semite who supported extermination. He just didn’t like jews, or trust them in business. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2002, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/33 "2002-04-10T20:26:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*I have to agree with **RealityChuck**. As soon as this cartoon is released on video or DVD, the internet will be peppered with stills of a goose-stepping Donald. Who needs the headaches? \*\* But those stills are out there (grainy and a bit blurry) but do a search and you’ll find tons of pictures from the cartoon. Oh well. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/34 "2002-04-12T05:31:24Z")
Disney was never a Nazi in the sense of being a member of the German National Socialist Party. But on the other hand, Disney was an extreme anti-Communist and conservative who, in the 1950’s, was apparently more comfortable hiring former SS officers than Jews. Eric Schlosser, in _Fast Food Nation_, also mentioned another fact. Anaheim, the California city that Disney picked as the site to build his ideal “World of Tomorrow” was best known prior to then as being a stronghold of the California KKK. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/35 "2002-04-12T06:00:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by voguevixen \* > [While this in no way proves Disney was an anti-Semite or Nazi, it certainly seems to imply that he was willing to turn a blind eye to what they did when it came to getting his empire off the ground. However, since both also worked for the US Army and Air Force, you have to wonder: What the hell? Apparently NOBODY had a problem with these guys at the time. \*\* Can’t speak to Walt, but Von Buran is easily explainable. We weren’t fighting the Nazi’s anymore. We were in a Cold War with the Soviets. We’ve got nukes, but the only way to deliver them are bombers, which can be shot down. One of the key battles is making missles to carry these nukes. The Soviets are known to be trying to make them, so you need to make missles to so as not to be at a disadvantage. Instead of starting from scratch, you go to people who have been working with rockets for decades and already know how to make V2’s. These happen to be former Nazis. (The US and Russia both grabbed as many German Rocket Scientists as they could once the war was over, as well as any V2 plans, parts and intact weapons) Thus, any war crimes they may have been invovled in are ignored, like a criminal who is given immunity for supplying the police with Testimony and information. Regardless of how moral it was, this is what happened. (As a positive side effect, This is also how we got to the moon by 1969.) ---
**Author:** ![voguevixen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5ac83/32.png) [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/36 "2002-04-12T06:24:29Z")
Dammit. I went and learned something. Jeez. (Still creepy though.) ---
**Author:** ![biker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce7236/32.png) [@biker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biker)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/37 "2002-04-12T11:02:57Z")
just finished reading “my father, uncle miltie” by milton berle’s son. this topic was mentioned in the book and milton would never take his son to disney world, because of milton’s belief that walt was anti-Semite. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/38 "2002-04-12T12:01:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Colibri \* > \*\*“Vunce rockets go up, > Who cares vhere dey come down? > Zat’s not my department! > Says Werner von Braun” > > -Tom Lehrer, “Werner von Braun,” 1965 \*\* A man whose allegi-ance Is one of expedience … Some say our attitude Should be one of gratitude Like the widows and cripples in old London town Who owe their large pensions to Werner von Braun Tom Lehrer, a kickass satirical rhymester, was at his best in that song. ---
**Author:** ![DAVEW0071](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19b73/32.png) [@DAVEW0071](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DAVEW0071)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/39 "2002-04-12T12:05:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bryan Ekers \* > \*\*By current German law, _Der Fuhrer’s Face_ couldn’t even be shown in Germany; displays of swastikas are considered serious constitutional offences. Incident to this, the _Star Trek_ episode _Patterns of Force_ is also verboten. > > I have to agree with **RealityChuck**. As soon as this cartoon is released on video or DVD, the internet will be peppered with stills of a goose-stepping Donald. Who needs the headaches? \*\* There is also the fact that enough people are horrified at _any_ reference to Nazism, in whatever context, and would likely cause further headaches. The short should be preserved as a historic document, but releasing it to the general public isn’t really in anyone’s best interests. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2002, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747/40 "2002-04-12T12:25:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > \*\* > > But those stills are out there (grainy and a bit blurry) but do a search and you’ll find tons of pictures from the cartoon. Oh well. > > Fenris \*\* [Not](http://www.spielbergfilms.com/images/derfuehrersface.jpg) grainy at all actually 🙂 **Max Torque** if you’re reading this could I ask you to mail me the link to the cartoon please. I’d be very interested in seeing the whole thing. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-walt-disney-a-nazi-and-an-antisemite/102747.md?page=3)