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The UFA Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company 19181945. By Klause Kreimeier New York: Hill and Wang Publishers, 1996. viii + 451 pp. Photographs, notes, and index. $35.00 ISBN 0809094835.
Reviewed by Clemens Verenkotte
The UFA was born during the First World War as a child of the German High Command and the Deutsche Bank. General Ernst Ludendorff, whose letter of July 4, 1917 to the War Department in Berlin marked the birth certificate of Universial Film AG (UFA), was convinced that it was "absolutely necessary for a successful conclusion of the war that film be put to work with the highest priority everywhere where German influence is still possible" (p. 23). The Deutsche Bank supported Ludendorff's proposal to conceal the fact that "the state is the purchaser" (p. 24).
During the roaring twenties the company rose to become a culturally well respected global player and one of the world's leading motion picture corporations. The success was due to UFAs big spending and major box office hits, such as movies like F. W. Murnau's "The Last Laugh" and Fritz Lang's "Metropolis." With the production costs of some movies quadrupling the budget approved by UFA's management and with liabilities of 36 million marks and only...